THE  ACTOR 


#• 


JHE  ACTOR 

AND   OTHER   SPEECHES 


CHIEFLY  ON  THEATRICAL  SUBJECTS 
AND  OCCASIONS 


BY 

WILLIAM  WINTER 


NEW-YORK 

THE  DUNLAP  SOCIETY 

1891 


9-^ 


r 


SANTA  BARBARA  COLLEGE  L. 


TO 


ELLEN   TERRY, 

REMEMBERING  GREAT  KINDNESS  IN  DARK 
DAYS,  AND  WITH  GRATITUDE  FOR  MUCH  HAP- 
PINESS, BESTOWED  EQUALLY  BY  HER  GENTLE 
FRIENDSHIP     AND     HER     ILLUSTRIOUS     GENIUS, 

I    DEDICATE    THIS    BOOK, 

WHICH,  BEARING  HUMBLE  TRIBUTE  TO  THE 
GREATEST  ACTRESS  OF  THE  AGE,  WILL  DE- 
RIVE WORTH  AND  DIGNITY  FROM  ASSOCIATION 
WITH       HER      LOVED     AND       HONORED      NAME. 

WILLIAM  WINTER. 


In  praising  A  more t  we  can?iot  err  : 

No  tongue  overvalues  heaven,  or  flatters  her  I' 


JDrcfacc. 

IT  has  been  my  for  time,  fnore  by  chatice  than  by  de- 
sign, to  deliver  many  speeches  and  poems  on  dramatic  and 
other  occasions.  Many  of  those  speeches  were  extempo- 
raneous, and  as  they  were  not  reported  they  perished 
as  soon  as  they  were  spoken.  One  of  thetn,  an  oration 
on  "  The  Press  and  the  Stage,"  was  delivered  before 
The  Goethe  Society,  at  the  Brunswick  Hotel,  New-  York, 
January  28,  1889,  and  it  has  been  piiblished  in  a  sep- 
arate volume.  In  compliance  with  the  request  of  com- 
rades in  The  Dunlap  Society  a  few  of  the  others  are 
brought  together  here.  The  longest  and  most  important 
of  thcfn  relates  to  "  The  Actor,  and  His  Duty  to  His 
Time."  This  was  read  before  a  large  assemblage  of 
actors,  at  Palmer's  Theater,  and  as  it  contains  unwel- 
come truths  it  was  received  partly  with  approval  and 
partly  with  disfavor.  An  ex-governor  of  Massachusetts, 
commenting  upoji  it,  has  kindly  explained  that  the 
admitted  evils  under  which  American  civilization  unde- 


niably  suffers,  and  which  have  injuriously  affected  the 
American  stage,  are  due  to  inordinate  rapidity  in  the 
advancement  of  art  and  science  among  the  Americati 
people.  My  readers  will,  no  doubt,  be  as  much  cheered 
as  I  was  by  that  sagacious  and  patriotic  explanation. 
The  companion  speeches,  having  been  carefully  thought 
out,  were  partly  improvised  and  partly  spoken  from  mem- 
ory. The  poems  that  I  have  delivered  on  dramatic 
occasions  ivill  be  found  in  the  edition  of  my  writings, — 
including  "  Wanderers"  "  Shakspere's  England^'  and 
'•  Gray  Days  and  Gold" — published  by  David  Douglas, 
of  Edinburgh,  and  Macmillan,  of  New -York. 

IV.    W. 
Fort  Hill, 
Neiu  Brighton,  Staten  Island, 
June  ig,  i8gi. 


CONTENTS. 

The  Actor.     The   Actor   and   His   Duty  to 

His  Time i 

The  Critic 26 

The  Comedian.     A  Tribute  to  Lester  Wal- 

LACK 35 

Sir  Perceval.     A  Tribute  to  Lester  Wallack  42 
The  Comrade.     American  and  English  Fel- 
lowship in  Art 44 

The  Tragedian.     A  Tribute  to  Edwin  Booth  52 

The  Poet 57 

The  Journalist.      A   Tribute  to   Whitelaw 

Reid  .    ., 62 

The  Friend.     Eulogy  upon  Henry  Edwards  75 


Cije  Victor 


AND    OTHER   SPEECHES. 


THE  ACTOR  AND  HIS  DUTY  TO  HIS  TIME. 

an  address  delivered  before  the 
actors'  fund  society,  at  palmer's  theater,  N.  Y. 

JUNE  4,  1889. 

IT  is  an  honorable  privilege  as  well  as  a  great  plea- 
sure to  share  in  the  proceedings  of  this  delightful 
occasion.  Dull  indeed  would  be  the  spirit  that  could 
not  be  impressed  by  the  intrinsic  loveliness  and  the 
artistic  meaning  of  this  imposing  scene ;  by  the  pres- 
ence of  this  remarkable  assemblage,  remarkable  equally 
for  genius,  intellect,  beauty,  sensibility,  noble  achieve- 
ment, exalted  character,  and  auspicious  promise;  and  by 
conscious  and  thrilling  perception  of  that  noble  and 
beautiful  art,  the  art  of  acting,  of  which  this  assemblage 
is  the  visible  sign.  (Once  again  is  exemplified  here  the 
puissant  and  perpetual  charm  of  the  stage,  its  ever- 
changing  but  never-dying  sway  over  the  fickle  multi- 
tude, whereby  an  actor's  prosperity  is  obtained  and 
assured,  and  its  placid  dominion,  held  as  with  a  scepter 
of  roses,  over  the  educated  mind,  the  refined  taste,  the 
I 


2  €f)c  Victor, 

comprehending  spirit,  the  adequate  and  responsive 
heart,  whereby  an  actor's  fame  is  clearly  defined  and 
permanently  established.  Back  of  this  occasion  stand 
the  prosperity  and  renown  of  the  American  drama. 
There  are  observers  who  always  take  a  despondent 
view  of  the  condition  of  our  theater.  In  each  succeed- 
ing period  of  dramatic  history  contemporary  writers 
are  found  who  declare  that  the  stage  is  in  a  decline 
and  is  much  inferior  to  what  it  was  in  earlier  and 
better  days.  No  doubt  its  condition  has  always  fluc- 
tuated, and  no  doubt  in  this  respect  the  future  will  re- 
semble the  past.  But  there  never  was  any  warrant 
for  the  proclamation  of  a  hopeless  theatrical  decline. 
Such  lamentations  have  always  proceeded  from  ideal- 
ists. Their  error  consists  in  the  wrong  custom  of  judg- 
ing exclusively  by  the  standard  of  the  scholar  and  the 
man  of  taste  an  institution  that  can  only  exist  when  it 
is  made  to  please  and  satisfy  many  classes  of  people. 
We  do  not  take  the  opinion  of  the  multitude  upon  such 
a  subject,  for  example,  as  the  poetry  of  Shelley  or  the 
painting  of  Murillo;  but  to  a  certain  judicious  and 
well-considered  extent  we  must  take  it  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  the  acted  drama.  It  is  the  presence  of  this 
element  which  has  inspired  a  long  line  of  Jeremiahs  in 
their  irrational  moans  over  the  alleged  fatal  degradation 
of  the  drama.  If  there  was  an  audience  for  the  flippant 
levity  of  Foote  and  the  bovine  drollery  of  Tate  Wilkin- 
son, there  was  also  an  audience  for  the  aerial  intellect, 
the  glittering  comedy,  the  tragic  fire,  and  the  exquisite 
pathos  of  Garrick.  The  horse-dramas  that  were  shown 
at  Drury  Lane  in  the  palmy  days  did  not  finally  invali- 


€j)c  sector* 


date  the  sovereignty  of  Mrs.  Siddons  or  the  glory  of  her 
companion  monarchs,  the  princes  of  the  proud  house 
of  Kemble.  Edmund  Kean  held  his  scepter  notwith- 
standing "  Catalini's  pantaloons."  The  same  journals 
of  the  passing  hour  that  record  a  long  and  remuner- 
ative currency  for  The  Parlor  Match,  or  The  Kitchen 
Poker,  or  The  Old  Hen-Coop,  or  The  Hole  in  Uncle 
John's  Sunday  Breeches  must  also  record  that  Edwin 
Booth  is  sometimes  paid  ten  thousand  dollars  for  one 
week  of  his  Shaksperian  acting;  that  Joseph  Jefferson 
finds  throughout  America  a  practical  response  for  dra- 
matic art  as  perfect  in  form  as  even  the  best  of  exigent 
Paris,  and  refined  with  a  poetic  spirituality  to  which  the 
stage  of  Paris  is  a  stranger;  that  Mary  Anderson  acts 
for  a  whole  season  to  crowded  houses  at  the  London 
Lyceum  Theater  in  a  Shaksperian  comedy ;  that  Henry 
Irving  and  Ellen  Terry  have  had  three  long  seasons  of 
splendid  prosperity  upon  the  American  stage,  giving  only 
plays  of  the  highest  order,  and  giving  them  only  in  the 
best  manner ;  that  under  the  management  of  Albert  M. 
Palmer  a  single  good  play,  in  three  seasons  out  of  five, 
runs  through  the  whole  of  a  theatrical  year  in  New 
York;  that  Ada  Rehan,  playing  Shakspere's  Shrew, 
has  been  as  eagerly  accepted  as  ever  Peg  Woffington 
was  in  Wildair  or  Louisa  Nisbett  in  Rosalind ;  and 
that  Augustin  Daly  not  long  ago  obtained  a  brilliant 
career  of  nearly  fourscore  nights  for  that  most  delicate 
and  evanescent  of  dramatic  compositions,  "A  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream."  It  is  true  that  in  the  present 
period,  which  is  one  of  turbulent  democratic  upheaval, 
the  social  cauldron  is  boiling  with  such  furious  impetu- 


4  €ijc  %ctot. 

osity  that  the  dregs  often  come  to  the  surface  and  for  a 
while  remain  there.  It  is  true  that  a  potential  factor 
in  contemporary  civilization  is  mediocrity,  and  that 
under  the  influence  of  that  malign  and  stupefying  force 
venerable  and  noble  ideas  are  for  a  while  discarded  or 
modified.  But  when  allowance  has  been  made  for 
every  qualification  it  remains  a  truth  that  the  stage  was 
never  so  great  or  so  powerful  in  this  republic  as  it  is 
to-day,  and  never  before  so  capable  of  wielding  a  superb 
influence  upon  the  advancement  of  society. 

The  word  that  ought  to  be  spoken  here  and  now  is, 
nevertheless,  a  word  of  warning.  In  the  period  of 
nearly  thirty  years  during  which  I  have  been  a  con- 
tinuous writer  about  the  stage  it  has  seldom  been  my 
fortune  to  write  anything  that  was  intended  specially 
for  actors.  My  writings  have  been  intended  for  the 
public,  and  they  have  been  prompted  and  guided  by 
an  ardent  desire  to  broaden  and  deepen  a  thoughtful 
public  interest  in  the  stage.  There  are  many  and 
various  benefits  to  be  derived  by  the  community  from 
an  appreciative  and  sympathetic  intimacy  with  the  art 
of  acting,  and  with  dramatic  literature ;  and  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  duty  of  a  theatrical  essayist  is  to  indi- 
cate what  and  where  those  benefits  are,  and  to  urge 
and  entice  the  people  to  obtain  tliem.  Many  other 
views  are  taken  of  the  vocation  of  criticism,  but  this 
will  be  found  a  practical  and  useful  one.  Every  effort 
is  propitious  for  the  general  welfare  which  tends  to 
dignify  the  popular  estimate  of  the  theater;  for  Tit 
should  never  be  forgotten  that  an  institution,  like  an 
individual,  may  be  prominent  and  influential  without 


€l)c  311ctor»  5 

being  either  rightly  understood  or  properly  respected., 
In  John  Gay's  comedy  of  "  Three  Hours  after  Mar- 
riage "  it  is  said  that  "  a  parrot  and  a  player  can  both 
utter  human  sounds,  but  we  allow  neither  of  them  to 
be  a  judge  of  wit."  The  old  view  of  the  stage  — 
much  as  the  stage  was  followed  and  enjoyed  —  is 
often  a  blandly  tolerant  and  half-contemptuous  view. 
To  adjust  that  mistaken  estimate  —  which  is  still  ex- 
tant—  to  assist  in  the  education  of  public  opinion 
respecting  the  intellectual  aspects  of  the  acted  drama 
is  a  worthy  mission  for  a  theatrical  writer.  He  mis- 
takes his  function  when  he  assumes  the  attitude  of  an 
instructor  to  the  players.  He  should  no  more  under- 
take to  teach  an  actor  the  art  of  acting  than  he  should 
undertake  to  teach  a  doctor  the  science  of  medicine 
or  to  teach  a  lawyer  the  science  of  law.  In  address- 
ing my  observations  to  you,  the  representatives  and 
guardians  of  the  acted  drama,  I  am  speaking  not 
as  an  instructor  but  as  an  observer  stationed  in  the 
outer  circle  of  theatrical  affairs.  Great  and  potent  as 
the  stage  now  is  in  America,  it  is  not  as  beneficent  as 
it  ought  to  be,  and  therefore  a  word  of  warning  may 
properly  be  spoken  with  reference  to  the  duty  of  the 
actor  to  his  time. 

The  period  of  national  development  through  which 
we  are  passing  is  strongly  marked  by  two  character- 
istics —  cynical  levity  and  a  studious  but  insincere 
and  unscrupulous  consideration  of  popular  caprice. 
Almost  everybody  makes  light  of  almost  everything. 
The  young  people,  upon  whom  modesty  would  sit 
with   so   much    grace   and   sweetness,  are  too  often 


6  €l)c  5Cftor. 

"  smart "  and  pert.  Their  elders,  whom  charity  and 
gentleness  should  adorn  with  cheerful  composure,  are 
too  often  fretful  and  harsh  with  distrust  and  sarcasm. 
No  historic  career,  no  personal  character,  no  principle 
of  action,  no  occurrence  of  life  is  so  serious  that  it 
cannot  be  made  the  subject  of  a  jest.  Slang  is  printed 
in  almost  every  newspaper  and  spoken  in  almost  every 
drawing-room.  The  mind  of  the  nation  is  tinged  with 
a  jocose  and  vulgar  humor,  and  the  voice  of  the  nation 
is  raucous  with  a  rude  hilarity.  You  may  hear,  indeed, 
if  you  will  pause  to  listen,  the  hum  of  industry,  the 
fine  poetic  murmur  of  reverence  and  aspiration,  and 
faint  and  far  away  the  gentle  note  of  worship,  the 
mellow  music  of  the  bells  of  God;  but  the  prevalent 
and  almost  the  overwhelming  sound  is  the  sound  of 
the  guffaw.  Beneath  this  boisterous  joviality  there  is 
a  spirit  —  not  universal,  but  widely  diffused  —  of  crafty 
and  sordid  selfishness.  The  tone  of  our  politics  is 
mercenary  and  mean.  Accepted,  practised,  and  ap- 
proved methods  of  our  business  partake  of  an  indirec- 
tion which  certainly  is  incompatible  with  a  fine  sense 
of  honor.  Agnosticism  has  so  shaken  the  fabric  not 
merely  of  creeds  (which  can  well  be  spared,  and  which 
are  destined  to  perish)  but  of  spiritual  faith  and  love, 
that  to  thousands  of  persons  religion,  ceasing  to  be 
a  refuge  and  an  anchor,  has  become  merely  a  fashion 
of  vacant  ceremonial.  In  many  directions  luxury  is 
rampant,  and  in  all  directions  it  is  passionately  desired. 
The  mood  of  the  populace  (notwithstanding  the  awful 
admonitory  fact  that  the  American  republic  had  not 
existed  one  hundred  years  before  it  was  convulsed  by 


the  most  hideous  civil  war  of  which  history  makes  any 
record)  is  a  mood  of  vainglorious  complacency ;  and 
in  this  the  people  are  stimulated  to  the  utmost  by  the 
American  press.  We  hear  continually  of  the  rights  of 
man  but  almost  never  of  his  duties.  Foreign  elements, 
seditious,  boisterous,  dangerous,  actively  pernicious  in 
many  ways,  and  made  potential  through  abuse  of  the 
suffrage,  largely  affect  or  entirely  control  the  disposition 
of  our  practical  affairs.  Public  office,  the  chief  object 
of  political  intrigue,  and  not  infrequently  made  a 
commodity  for  barter  and  sale,  is  often  perverted  in 
its  functions  and  disgraced  in  its  incumbents.  An 
insane  greed  for  sudden  wealth  startles  the  observer 
by  its  prevalence  and  its  rapacity.  Youth  is  trained 
to  acquire  the  rewards  of  industry  and  enterprise,  not 
by  prudent,  patient,  and  continuous  toil,  but  by  craft 
or  the  strong  hand.  Manners  —  the  final  and  perfect 
flower  of  noble  character  and  a  fine  civilization  —  are 
so  completely  overwhelmed  by  violent  and  boisterous 
vulgarity  and  insensate  hardness  that  they  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  exist;  while  refinement,  which  is  the  essen- 
tial comfort  and  charm,  and  which  ought  to  be  prized 
and  guarded  as  the  crown  and  consummate  glory  of 
social  life,  is  oppressed  and  insulted  at  every  turn. 
Haste  and  strife,  fiurry  and  racket  convulse  the  towns 
and  madden  the  population.  Men  and  women  are 
hustled  and  packed  into  the  public  conveyances  as  if 
they  were  cattle  in  a  pen.  The  sanctity  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  not  merely  disregarded,  it  is  unknown: 
Reckless  newspapers  print  whatever  they  please,  and 
the  honest  man,  bemired  by  their  abuse,  who  proceeds 


8  €jjc  511ftor» 

against  any  of  them  for  libel  is  ridiculed  as  an  over- 
sensitive fool.  The  book-stalls  teem  with  fiction  that 
is  either  erotic  delirium  or  sentimental  rubbish.  Thir- 
ty-five years  ago  a  woman  was  thought  to  be  courage- 
ous who  dared  to  read  the  novel  of  "  Jane  Eyre."  To- 
day the  loathsome  feculence  and  hideous  moral  leprosy 
of  the  novels  of  Emile  Zola  may  be  seen  in  public 
places,  borne  in  the  hands  even  of  young  girls.  The 
spectacles  that  are  still  admired  as  architecture  elude 
specification  and  are  indeed  too  terrible  for  words. 
The  sounds  to  which  we  listen  unmoved  would  deafen 
or  would  destroy  any  other  people  outside  of  China  or 
Madagascar.  The  morning,  noonday,  and  evening 
steam-whistle  rising  from  a  thousand  able-bodied 
boilers ;  the  intermittent  tooting  of  a  hundred  aerial 
locomotives ;  the  clank  and  rattle  of  incessant  railway 
trains  in  the  air  and  tramway  cars  in  the  shattered  and 
jagged  streets;  the  pounding  of  heavy  trucks  over 
broken  pavements ;  the  clangor  of  dissonant  church 
bells ;  the  strident  blast  of  the  ubiquitous  and  incessant 
hand-organ;  and  the  rasping  yell  of  the  hcensed  ven- 
der—  they  are  all  here:  so  that  often,  after  listening 
for  a  day  and  a  night  to  the  infernal  din  of  this  capital, 
I  think  that  New  York  has  become  what  the  great 
orator  Rufus  Choate  declared  Boston  Common  would 
become  if  ever  the  occupation  of  it  should  be  granted 
to  the  acquisitive  desire  of  the  Providence  Railway 
Company,  "  At  present,"  he  said,  "  it  is  a  peaceful 
pleasure-ground,  wherein  your  citizens  can  walk 
abroad  and  recreate  themselves.  Grant  it  to  this  cor- 
poration, and  what  follows  ?  ^tna  —  Vesuvius  — 
Stromboli  —  Cotopaxi —  Hell." 


€j)c  3llctot»  9 

The  sentiment  of  patriotism  is  a  noble  and  lovely- 
sentiment,  but  it  cannot  be  nurtured  by  self-deception. 
Undoubtedly  the  shield  has  two  sides.  There  are 
great  and  auspicious  elements  in  our  civilization,  and 
since  the  web  and  woof  of  our  time  are  woven  of  va- 
rious colors  the  fabric  shows  bright  as  well  as  dark. 
The  beautiful  observation  of  Charles  Reade  is  as  true 
of  our  people  as  it  is  of  any  other :  "  Not  a  day  passes 
over  the  earth  but  men  and  women  of  no  note  do  great 
deeds,  speak  great  words,  and  suffer  noble  sorrows." 
If  it  were  not  so  the  battle  would  be  lost  already,  and 
further  struggle  would  be  useless.  But  these  things 
that  I  have  named  exist,  and  they  indicate  a  tendency 
in  the  drift  of  our  time — by  no  means  historically  new, 
but  as  dangerous  as  ever — against  which  every  intel- 
lectual force  of  the  age,  either  directly  or  indirectly, 
ought  to  be  arrayed. 

(There  are  two  institutions  which,  beyond  all  others, 
indicate  the  condition  of  the  pubHc  mind,  and  which, 
equally  beyond  all  others,  afifect  its  tone  and  influence 
its  movement.  Those  two  institutions  are  the  news- 
paper  and  the  stage.  The  supreme  and  universal 
rulers  of  human  conduct  are  woman,  vanity,  money, 
political  ambition,  and  religious  fanaticism;  but  among 
specific  social  forces  the  newspaper  and  the  stage  tran- 
scend all  others  in  their  reflex  bearing  and  their  direct 
power  upon  the  community;  and  for  that  reason  a 
greater  responsibility  rests  upon  them  than  upon  any  of 
their  associate  forces,  with  reference  to  the  intellectual, 
moral,  and  spiritual  advancement  of  the  human  race. 
Each  stands  in  the  same  environment  and  each  is  con- 
fronted by  the  same  problem.     When  your  existence 


lo  Z^c  ^ctor. 


depends  upon  a  perfectly  harmonious  adjustment  of 
yourself  to  the  needs  and  the  pleasures  of  the  people, 
to  how  great  an  extent  will  you  defer  to  the  drift  of  the 
popular  mood  ?  For  you  who  are  actors  and  man- 
agers, and  therefore  the  representatives  and  guardians 
of  the  acted  drama,  the  question  is  a  vital  one.  Your 
temptation  is  to  fool  "  the  many-headed  beast "  to  the 
top  of  his  bent ;  and  thereupon  your  danger  is,  in  the 
fierce  strife  of  competitive  endeavor  and  under  the  im- 
perative need  of  instant  success,  that  you  will  end  by 
surrendering  your  authority  altogether  into  the  hands  of 
the  mob.  To  some  extent,  within  the  last  thirty  years, 
that  surrender  has  already  been  made.  It  is  about  the 
period  of  one  generation  now  since  Dion  Boucicault 
made  the  first  specimen  of  the  "Sensation  Drama  "  and 
invented  and  proclaimed  that  epithet  to  designate  a 
new  school  of  art.  Next  came  the  lascivious  charm 
and  wanton  allurement  of  the  Opera  Bouflfe,  embodied 
in  Tostee  and  conducted  by  Bateman.  Rapidly  after 
that  the  semi-nude  burlesque  was  enthroned,  with 
Lydia  Thompson  for  its  empress  and  Samuel  Colville 
for  its  prophet ;  while  William  Wheatley,  with  the  glit- 
tering spectacle  of  the  "  Black  Crook,"  revived  and  im- 
planted upon  the  American  stage  the  same  voluptuous 
and  mischievous  pageantry  that  Sir  William  Davenant, 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  conveyed  into  London 
from  the  theater  of  France.  Then  for  a  while  the  drift 
was  in  favor  of  tainted  French  dramas  on  the  ever- 
lasting theme  of  incontinence  in  the  state  of  marriage. 
Sentimental  farces  fcUowed,  and  after  them  the  deluge. 
Of  late  the  current  runs  to  horse-play  and  the  "  real 


€1^  %tUit. 


II 


tubs  "  of  Mr.  Crummies,  and  the  enraptured  multitude 
is  thrilled  to  behold  an  actual  woman  swimming  in  an 
actual  tank  of  water,  or  an  actual  fire-engine  dragged 
across  the  stage  almost  as  swiftly  as  it  can  be  dragged 
in  the  street,  and  with  almost  as  much  racket.  These 
are  some  of  the  results  of  an  uncompromising  submis- 
sion to  the  popular  lead,  which  almost  always  is  ignoble, 
irrational,  casual,  and  wrong.  In  this  submission  many 
of  the  newspapers  of  America  have  set  a  pernicious  and 
deplorable  example ;  but  this  fact,  while  it  makes  the 
duty  of  the  actor  to  his  time  more  arduous,  should  also 
make  it  more  evident  and  more  imperative.  That  duty 
is  to  check  and  withstand  as  much  as  possible  the 
gross,  leveling,  degrading  influences  of  excessive  de- 
mocracy,—  which  tend  to  blight  everything  with  the 
baleful  tyranny  of  the  commonplace, —  and  to  instil, 
to  protect,  and  to  maintain  purity,  sweetness,  and  re- 
finement in  our  feelings,  our  manners,  our  language, 
and  our  national  character.  The  common  precept,  the 
precept  of  the  shopkeeper  in  dramatic  art,  is  spoken 
every  day:  "  Give  them  what  they  want."  The  higher 
and  better  precept,  the  precept  of  the  moralist,  would 
enjoin  you  to  "  give  them  what  they  ought  to  have." 
Which  is  the  better  counsel  ?  and  to  which  of  these 
voices  will  you  listen  ?  Tlhe  welfare  of  the  people  in 
every  age  is  committed  as  a  sacred  trust  to  the  best  in- 
tellect of  the  time, )  A  part  of  that  responsibility  rests 
on  you,  and  it  can  only  be  evatied  by  the  sacrifice  of 
the  institution  that  is  your  life.  If  the  shopkeeping 
spirit  is  permitted  absolutely  to  prevail,  if  you  yield 
more  and  more  and  more  to  the  caprice  of  the  thought- 


12  €f)c  3ilctor. 

less  multitude,  while  you  will  not  destroy  the  stage 
(because  the  art  of  acting  is  immortal),  you  will  help  to 
bring  upon  it  another  blight  of  decrepitude,  another 
season  of  dullness  and  decay,  such  as  followed  the  orgies 
of  the  Restoration  in  England  toward  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  or  such  as  attended  the  general  col- 
lapse of  dramatic  art  in  America  about  sixty  years  ago. 
Vulgus  vult  decipi :  decipiatur  !  That  was  the  haughty, 
unsympathetic,  contemptuous  doctrine  of  ancient  cyn- 
ical philosophy  ("  the  common  people  like  to  be  fooled : 
fooled  let  them  be"),  and  under  its  malign  influence, the 
few  taking  heed  only  of  themselves  and  leaving  the 
many  to  folly  and  riot,  the  great  Roman  Empire  slowly 
crumbled  into  pieces  like  a  moth-eaten  garment. 
Surely  for  you,  the  leaders  of  thought  in  your  domain, 
there  is  a  nobler  principle  than  that  old  Latin  sneer. 
In  the  lofty  elegiac  lines  that  Matthew  Arnold  wrote 
ui)on  the  tomb  of  his  illustrious  father  in  Rugby 
Chapel  none  is  more  touching  or  more  significant 
than  the  proud  and  tender  exclamation,  "  Thou,  my 
father,  wouldst  not  be  saved  alone."  While  the  late 
Lord  Beaconsfield  —  a  great  man  —  was  Prime  Min- 
ister of  England,  every  essential  measure  of  national 
policy,  it  is  said,  was  originated  and  prompted  by  him ; 
yet  in  every  case  its  inception  and  pursuance  appeared 
to  have  been  suggested  to  him  by  her  Majesty  Queen 
Victoria.  It  is  within  your  province  undoubtedly,  in 
dealing  with  the  sovereign  people,  to  give  them  what 
they  want;  but  it  is  within  the  power  of  your  intellect, 
your  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  of  the  world, 
your  wisdom  and  dexterity  and  tact,  to  make  them 


€^c  Victor.  13 


want  what  they  ought  to  have,  and  to  make  them  think, 
when  you  provide  it,  that  they  have  asked  you  to  do 
so.  This  is  the  duty  of  the  actor  to  his  time — and  his 
duty  is  Ukevvise  his  interest.^) 

The  stage  has  generally  needed  popular  support,  but 
it  has  never  prospered  under  popular  dominion.  In 
Greece,  for  example,  nearly  twenty-three  hundred  years 
ago,  when  the  theater  established  by  ^schylus  and 
nurtured  by  Pericles  had  reached  and  passed  its  high- 
est phase,  there  came  that  memorable  period  of  popular 
license  and  misrule  when  the  multitude  had  supreme 
power  over  the  state  and  when  the  idol  of  the  multi- 
tude was  the  ribald  Aristophanes.  You  are  familiar 
with  the  hideous  and  pathetic  story  of  the  persecution 
and  murder  of  Socrates.  The  "  Clouds  "  and  the  "  Birds  " 
have  survived  to  our  day,  and  it  is  easy  to  perceive  at 
once  their  caustic  wit  and  their  pernicious  influence. 
Sophocles  and  Euripides  were  derided.  Everything 
venerable  and  noble  was  covered  with  ridicule.  The 
reputation  of  individuals  was  assailed  without  truth  or 
mercy  and  defamed  without  humanity  or  limit.  The 
peace  of  families  was  ruthlessly  destroyed.  The  very 
magistrates  who  sanctioned  the  appearance  of  the  com- 
edians were  publicly  lampooned  and  insulted.  The 
gods  themselves  were  flouted.  The  mob  had  what  it 
wanted,  and  the  theater  became  a  mere  conduit  for 
comic  libel  and  vulgar  mirth,  while  dramatic  art  was 
submerged  in  ribald  licentiousness  and  scurrilous  in- 
decency. To  such  a  depth  indeed  was  the  Grecian 
stage  degraded  by  this  supremacy  of  the  popular  taste, 
misled  by  a  brilliantly  wicked  humorist,  that  even  the 


14  €1)C  %ttot. 


transcendent  genius  of  Menander,  rising  in  the  next 
age,  could  scarcely  redeem  it  from  settled  ignominy 
and  disgrace.  In  Italy,  where  the  dramatic  revival 
began  in  the  thirteenth  and  culminated  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  there  came  a  season  of  democratic  experi- 
ment and  disorder  about  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth, when  the  theater  was  left  unprotected  to  the 
popular  caprice ;  and  from  that  time  onward  for  fifty 
years  nothing  was  seen  upon  it  but  coarse  Spanish 
farces  —  the  paltry  one-act  buffooneries  with  which 
the  Spanish  stage  began  but  which  in  that  period  it 
had  outgrown.  Kindred  illustrations  might  readily 
be  drawn  from  the  history  of  the  theater  in  France 
and  England.  Look  into  the  lives  of  Fleury  and 
Macklin  and  Fennell  and  Edmund  Kean;  look  into 
Jackson's  account  of  the  Scottish  stage  and  Hitch- 
cock's account  of  the  stage  in  Ireland,  and  your  right- 
eous indignation  is  more  than  once  aroused  at  the 
spectacle  of  popular  tyranny  overriding  and  degrading 
the  stage.  On  the  other  hand,  (the  best  periods  in  the 
history  of  the  drama  have  been  those  periods  when  it 
has  been  closely  affiliated  with  the  highest,  because  the 
ablest  and  most  refined,  classes  of  intellectual  society 
—  for  these  could  guide  and  stimulate  and  govern  its 
powers  and  its  beauties,  and,  by  the  force  of  fashion 
and  example,  could  lead  the  multitude  in  their  train^ 
The  Shaksperian  audience  was  an  audience  that  would 
listen  to  poetry,  and  was  capable  of  understanding  and 
appreciating  great  and  beautiful  things.  In  that  fer- 
tile and  sumptuous  period  of  English  dramatic  liter- 
ature extending  from  1580  to  1640  it  accepted  and 


Cjjc  ^ctor.  15 

enjoyed  not  only  the  incomparable  grandeur,  beauty, 
and  truth  of  Shakspere,  but  the  stormy  splendor  of 
Marlowe,  the  funeral  pomp  and  somber  pageantry  of 
Webster,  the  lovely  simplicity  of  Heywood,  the  passion 
and  pathos  of  Ford,  the  indolent,  affluent  grace  and 
music  of  Dekker,  the  strong  thought  and  trenchant  and 
vibrant  verse  of  Massinger,  the  noble  repose  and  copi- 
ous emotion  of  Middleton,  and,  above  all,  the  wonder- 
ful feeling,  depth,  eloquence,  variety,  and  loveliness 
of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  No  such  body  of  litera- 
ture had  been  created  before,  and  nothing  like  it  has 
been  created  since.  Creative  art,  indeed,  is  in  no 
sense  a  result  of  environment :  its  impulse  proceeds 
out  of  the  great  central  heart  of  Nature.  But  in  those 
"  spacious  days  of  great  Elizabeth  "  the  plays  were  not 
only  written  —  they  were  acted  and  received.  They 
had  a  public.  The  stage  flourished  because  the  finest 
intelligence  and  feeling  in  the  English  nation  fostered 
and  guarded  it,  and  the  multitude  was  lifted  to  the 
level  of  Spenser  and  Sidney  and  Raleigh  — 

"Of  those  great  spirits  who  went  down  like  suns 
And  left  upon  the  mountain -tops  of  death 
A  light  that  made  them  lovely." 

Upon  that  high  level  the  people  do  not  habitually 
stand,  and  it  would  be  folly  to  assume  that  they  do. 
'But  there  are  noble  elements  and  grand  possibilities 
in  human  nature;  to  that  high  level  the  people  can 
be  lifted,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  every  intellectual  man, 
and  therefore  of  the  actor,  to  lead  them  upward.' 
Much  is  accomplished  when  the  stage  is  made  and 


1 6  €(jc  ^Crtoc, 

kept  important  —  as  Edwin  Booth  and  Henry  Irving 
and  Augustin  Daly  and  Albert  M.  Palmer  and  Law- 
rence Barrett  have  made  and  kept  it  —  in  the  esteem  of 
the  best  contemporary  minds.  Every  student  of  its  his- 
tory knows  that  it  has  always  been  a  thing  of  moods, 
now  exalted  and  now  depressed,  but  of  late  years,  when 
viewed  apart  from  all  parasitic  entertainments,  steadily 
in  the  ascendant.  The  time  was  when  the  wise  and 
gentle  Charles  Lamb  expressed  a  mild  astonishment 
that  a  person  capable  of  remembering  and  repeating 
the  words  of  Shakspere  should  for  that  reason  be  sup- 
posed to  possess  a  mind  congenial  with  that  of  the  poet. 
Such  an  idea  surprises  nobody  now.  ^Modern  thought 
has  recognized  that  the  actor  is  a  mental  and  spiritual 
force ;  that  he  is  intimately  connected  with  the  cause 
of  public  education;  that  he  is  not  a  parrot  and  not 
simply  an  interpreter;  that  he  brings  something  of 
his  own;  that  although  the  poet  provides  the  soul 
it  is  the  actor  who  must  provide  the  body ;  and  that 
without  having  the  body  as  well  as  the  soul  you  can- 
not have  dramatic  representations  or  the  benefit  of 
the  dramatic  art^  This  righteous  illumination  of 
modern  thought,  however,  with  reference  to  the  pro- 
fession of  acting  is  not  yet  absolutely  complete.  The 
fact  that  the  stage  now  stands  upon  the  same  level 
with  the  other  learned  professions  has  not  yet  become 
permanently  imbedded  in  the  spontaneous  convic- 
tions of  society.  Little  denotements  frequently  occur 
that  the  ultra-respectable  and  conventional  mind  of 
our  time  is  still  disturbed  and  twisted  upon  this  sub- 
ject.    Bigotry  dies  hard.     In    1832   the    Harrisburg 


€!jc  Victor.  17 

clergyman  who  read  the  burial  service  over  the  re- 
mains of  Joseph  Jefferson,  the  great  comedian  of  that 
period  (an  actor  as  noble  and  famous  as  his  illustrious 
and  beloved  descendant  in  our  generation),  altered 
the  text  of  that  service  so  as  to  say  "  this  man " 
instead  of  "  our  deceased  brother "  in  the  sentence 
which  commits  the  body  to  the  ground.  In  1870 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Sabine,  of  New  York,  refused  to  open 
his  church  for  the  funeral  of  that  venerated  actor 
George  Holland ;  bestowing  as  he  did  so,  by  a  single 
fortunate  phrase,  a  permanent  honor  upon  "  the  little 
church  around  the  corner,"  and  making  it  possible 
for  me  to  originate  the  movement  known  as  the 
Holland  Benefit.  In  1883  a  minister  of  the  gospel  in 
New  Jersey  pubHcly  stigmatized  a  French  actress, 
then  in  America,  as  being  "  as  vile  a  hag  as  the  sewers 
of  Paris  ever  spewed  into  the  state-room  of  an  Atlantic 
steamship" — hags  always  coming  out  of  sewers  and 
the  sewage  system  of  the  French  capital  being  directly 
connected  with  ocean  travel.  Clarendon,  the  old  his- 
torian, said  that  "  clergymen  understand  the  least,  and 
take  the  worst  measure  of  human  affairs,  of  all  man- 
kind who  can  read  and  write  " ;  .and  perhaps  you  will 
think  there  is  occasionally  some  ground  for  his  extreme 
opinion.  In  this  year  1889  the  amiable  and  admir- 
able Quaker  poet  John  G.  Whittier,  in  a  published 
letter,  wonders  whether  Mrs.  Langtry  entertains  as 
strong  an  objection  to  an  author  as  he  does  to  an 
actress.  The  incisive  and  trenchant  writer  of  "  Obiter 
Dicta"  —  one  of  the  few  contemporary  books  of  real 
literature,  rich  in  vital  thought  and  therefore  destined 

3 


i8  €l)c  Victor. 

to  survive — dismisses  the  profession  of  the  actor  with 
a  civil  sneer.  Some  of  my  valued  friends  among  the 
scholars  of  this  period,  reading  those  volumes  of"  Brief 
Chronicles "  in  which  I  have  endeavored  to  commemo- 
rate many  of  the  actors  of  the  last  thirty  years,  have 
expressed  to  me  their  gentle  wonder  that  so  much 
labor  should  have  been  expended  on  such  insignifi- 
cant persons.  These  are  trifles;  but  all  along  the 
current  of  human  life  trifles  disclose  the  involuntary 
views  of  mankind.  These  signs,  and  others  like  them, 
indicate  that  the  ancient  spirit  of  commingled  big- 
otry and  condescension  toward  the  theatre,  while  it  is 
dying  away,  is  not  yet  dead.  Seven  hundred  years 
ago,  when  the  modem  dramatic  movement  began  in 
Italy  and  in  England  with  the  Miracle  Plays,  the 
clergy  themselves  were  frequently  the  actors ;  and 
perhaps  the  church  has  not  yet  forgiven  the  regular 
dramatic  profession  for  having  invaded  that  field  and 
confiscated  its  forces  and  its  fruits.  In  every  period 
possibly  —  in  recent  times  certainly — men  of  ability 
and  acquirements  in  other  walks  of  life  have  been 
made  uncomfortable  by  the  rapid  rise,  the  opulent 
prosperity,  and  the  dazzling  renown  of  actors.  Dr. 
Johnson,  beside  whom  David  Garrick,  who  had  been 
his  schoolboy,  remained  a  schoolboy  to  the  last,  pos- 
sessed no  such  brilliancy  of  reputation  in  his  period, 
and  has  descended  in  no  such  picturesque  splendor  of 
fame  to  ours,  as  that  which  David  Garrick  obtained  and 
transmitted.  Lowell  and  Holmes  and  Bancroft,  as  men 
of  letters,  have  done  a  work  of  more  radical  and  abiding 
value  for  the  public  than  that  of  Jefferson  or  Booth; 


€l)e  %ttot.  19 

but  the  prevalent  sentiment  toward  Lowell  and  Holmes 
and  Bancroft  is  cold  respect  in  comparison  with  the 
fervor  of  enthusiasm  that  stirs  in  the  American  heart 
for  Jefferson  and  Booth.  There  is  no  reputation  in 
mighty  London  at  this  moment  so  brilliant  as  that  of 
Henry  Irving;  and  this  is  not  confined  to  the  capital, 
for  when,  as  it  happened  last  summer,  we  were  walking 
over  the  lonely  hills  of  remote  Westmoreland,  the 
passengers  upon  every  carriage  that  chanced  to  pass 
took  off  their  hats  to  him  and  often  cheered  him  by 
name.  It  is  natural  that  "  your  royal  preparation  " 
should  somewhat  annoy  the  doctor  of  divinity  and  the 
man  of  science  and  letters.  Oliver  Goldsmith,  it  is 
said,  was  displeased  because  the  people  in  somebody's 
drawing-room,  preferring  female  beauty  to  poetical 
genius,  looked  at  the  lovely  Horneck  girls  instead  of 
looking  at  him.  This  mild  competitive  resentment 
of  your  ascendancy,  however,  is  superficial,  transient, 
and  ultimately  ineffective.  The  essential  vitality  of 
the  remnant  of  respectable  aversion  to  the  actor  still 
extant  consists  in  his  faults  and  is  fed  by  his  errors. 
He  has  allowed  himself  sometimes  to  trifle  with  his 
vocation,  and  in  the  pursuit  and  practical  adminis- 
tration of  the  theater  he  does  not  always  suffi- 
ciently assert  the  dignity  and  weight  of  intellectual 
character. 

The  popular  drift  of  the  day,  as  I  have  stated,  sets 
in  the  direction  of  jocose  levity  and  cynical  sarcasm. 
This  note,  in  its  proper  time,  place,  and  proportion,  is 
amusing  and  perhaps  salutary,  but  it  may  readily  be- 
come immoderate,  and  when  it  is  permitted  in  any 


20  ^t    %tt<K, 

way  to  detract  from  the  dignity  of  a  great  institution 
—  when  the  professors  of  the  stage  themselves  em- 
ploy it  to  undermine  and  enfeeble  their  authority  —  it 
becomes  a  pernicious  one.  The  Greek  farce-writer 
Philemon  died  of  laughter  at  seeing  a  jackass  eat 
figs.  Appetite  is  perennial,  and  the  jackass  continues 
his  ministrations  —  only  the  laughing  Philemon  does 
not  die.  He  gets  his  guffaw,  and  it  agrees  with  him, 
and  under  its  clodpoll  influence  he  grows  grosser  and 
coarser  and  commoner  day  by  day.  In  other  words, 
there  is  a  porcine  taste  for  indelicate  buffoonery,  and 
in  the  practical,  shop-keeping  cultivation  of  this  popu- 
lar appetite  a  most  inordinate  prominence  has  been 
given  to  vulgar  varieties  and  to  burlesque.  No  one 
begrudges  to  the  burlesquers  all  the  remuneration  to 
which  their  trivial  proceedings  may  be  entitled ;  but 
at  present  the  interest  of  the  stage  and  of  society 
needs  their  repression.  They  are  excessive.  All  tri- 
fling with  serious  things  has  a  direct  tendency  to  lower 
them  in  the  esteem  of  the  multitude,  by  nature  trivial, 
desultory,  and  capricious.  The  art  of  acting  is  the 
living  soul  of  the  theater  as  an  institution,  and  by 
heaping  upon  that  noble  art  an  almost  illimitable 
burden  of  elaborate  silliness  these  burlesquers  have 
done  much  to  obscure  the  luster  of  the  theater  and  in 
part  to  sequester  it  from  the  sympathy  and  respect  of 
hundreds  of  the  best  minds  of  the  age.  A  little  frolic 
does  well;  but  rank  foolishness,  in  the  various  garbs 
of  farcical  mummery,  slang,  indelicate  display  of  the 
female  person,  and  vacant  antic  and  babble  have  been 
carried  far  and  tolerated  long.     The  representatives 


Clje  5llctor,  21 

of  this  rubbish,  indeed,  do  not  now  scruple  to  assert 
themselves  as  artists,  and  there  is  such  a  phalanx  of 
them  that  in  some  parts  of  America  nothing  but  "  leg- 
business  "  is  offered  upon  the  stage,  whence  mind  and 
beauty  and  refinement,  crystallized  in  dramatic  art, 
were  long  since  banished.  This  is  nothing  less  than 
a  calamity.  **  It  is  not,  nor  it  cannot  come  to,  good." 
Theatrical  entertainment,  indeed,  must  take  many 
forms,  and  burlesque  can  be  treated  as  a  fine  art ;  but 
considering  how  it  is  treated,  and  remembering  its 
natural  tendency,  every  friend  of  the  theater  must 
deplore  its  dominion.  ,  Greek  art,  which  was  perfect 
art  (save  that  it  lacked  Uie  ideal  expressed  in  the  char- 
acter and  conduct  of  Jesus),  was  informed  by  one  su- 
preme, inexorable,  triumphant  principle,  never  to  be 
forgotten  or  neglected  :  nothing  in  excess. 

Conduct  is  character,  expressed  under  the  pressure 
of  circumstances.  The  flippant  manner  goes  with  the 
flimsy  mind.  Dignity  is  repose.  It  is  the  dignity  of 
the  dramatic  character  that  must  be  trusted  to  sustain 
the  power  and  augment  the  renown  of  the  dramatic 
profession.  That  dignity  I  have  always  asserted  and 
it  is  no  spirit  of  detraction  that  leads  me  now  to  urge 
that  actors  ought  to  be  stern  critics  of  themselves ; 
that  they  ought  to  give  little  or  no  attention  to  what  is 
said  about  them  in  print ;  and  that  they  would  enhance 
the  importance  of  their  calling  in  the  public  esteem 
by  a  severe  reticence  with  reference  to  their  personal 
affairs.  When  one  of  the  admirers  of  Wellington  told 
him  that  he  was  equally  great  as  a  statesman  and  a 
soldier  the  Iron  Duke  replied  :   "  I  am  glad  that  there 


2  2  €!jc  sector, 

is  no  one  to  hear  you  say  this,  for  I  would  not  have 
any  one  think  nie  such  a  fool  as  to  believe  it."  The 
man  who  is  thus  a  stern  critic  of  himself  is  neither  to 
be  misled  nor  wounded  by  the  observations  of  others. 
To  a  character  like  that,  self-poised,  simple,  and  sincere, 
critical  commentary  naturally  appears  like  what  for  the 
most  part  it  is  —  the  buzzing  of  flies  in  the  air.  The 
actor  is  necessarily  sensitive  ;  but  inordinate  sensibility 
is  a  misfortune,  and  to  shield  himself  from  stupidity 
and  malice,  to  maintain  his  repose,  and  to  assert  his 
power,  he  must  wear  the  armor  of  a  cheerful  phi- 
losophy. There  is  a  wise  passage  in  the  Spectator, 
wherein  Addison  has  paraphrased  and  applied  the 
excellent  counsel  of  Epictetus :  "  When  I  hear  of  a 
satirical  speech  or  writing  that  is  aimed  at  me,  I  ex- 
amine my  own  heart  whether  I  deserve  it  or  not.  If 
I  bring  in  a  verdict  against  myself  I  endeavor  to 
rectify  my  conduct  for  the  future  in  those  particulars 
which  have  drawn  the  censure  upon  me  ;  but  if  the 
whole  invective  be  grounded  upon  a  falsehood  I 
trouble  myself  no  further  about  it  and  look  upon  my 
name  at  the  head  of  it  to  signify  no  more  than  one  of 
those  fictitious  names  made  use  of  by  an  author  to 
introduce  an  imaginary  character.  This  is  a  piece  of 
fortitude  which  every  one  owes  to  his  own  innocence." 
Let  me  add  that  it  is  a  piece  of  fortitude  which,  amid 
flippancy  and  chatter,  every  one  owes  to  his  self- 
respect.  With  the  practical  adoption  of  that  philoso- 
phy by  actors,  with  the  abatement  of  undue  solicitude 
as  to  the  frivolous  babble  of  the  hour,  much  that  be- 
littles the  stage  and  makes  it  still  seem  subservient, 


€|)c  Victor.  23 

paltry,  and  incidental  in  the  judgment  of  some  of  the 
best  minds  of  the  age,  will  disappear.  The  torrent  of 
gossip  which  is  now  a  curse  will  run  dry,  and  the  actress 
who  is  constantly  losing  her  diamonds,  and  the  hand- 
some actor  who  is  continually  bewitching  her  Royal 
Highness  the  Princess  of  Wales  will  be  heard  of  no 
more. 

And  so  I  end  as  I  began,  the  advocate  of  the  intel- 
lectual principle,  which  alone  can  crown  a  perfect 
civilization  with  the  white  lilies  of  dignity  and  refine- 
ment. Our  republic  has  been  more  than  abundantly 
favored  with  material  prosperity;  yet  it  cannot  be 
truthfully  denied  that  as  a  people  we  are  still  deficient 
in  gentleness  and  grace.  That  way  lies  our  need,  and 
in  that  direction  it  is  time  that  we  should  make  our- 
selves capable  of  practical  fidelity  to  the  highest  ideal. 
As  much  of  heaven  is  visible  as  we  have  eyes  to  see. 
All  the  forces  of  spiritual  culture  are  within  us.  In  the 
development  of  those  forces  the  actor  can  accomplish 
a  great  work;  and  surely  there  is  something  more  in- 
volved in  his  noble  vocation  than  that  one  man  should 
display  talent  and  another  man  should  praise  it.  '^The 
capacity  to  reveal  universal  human  nature,  helping 
man  to  understand  himself,  is  the  justification  of  the 
actor3  iHis  faculties  are  not  necessarily  more  impor- 
tant or  more  brilliant  than  those  of  other  intellectual 
men;  but  the  medium  that  Nature  has  provided  for 
their  expression  is  to  the  majority  of  persons  more 
sympathetic,  alluring,  and  delightful  than  any  other 
form  of  utterance  in  the  world.;  More  than  ever  in  the 
movement  of  human  affairs,  accordingly,  the  attention 


24  €ftc  Victor. 

of  the  people  is  fixed  upon  the  actor ;  and  more  than 
ever  is  it  essential  that  he  should  know,  and  feel,  and  re- 
member that  he  is  the  representative  and  guardian  of 
a  beautiful  art  and  not  simply  the  keeper  of  a  shop. , 

It  was  once  my  privilege,  toward  the  end  of  a  lovely 
day  in  June,  to  stand  upon  the  ramparts  of  Windsor 
Castle,  and  to  gaze  in  mute  wonder  and  rapture  over 
that  delicious  landscape  —  the  hallowed  realm  of  learn- 
ing and  taste  —  which  environs  the  stateliest  and  most 
majestic  of  the  royal  palaces  of  England.  The  glory 
of  sunset  was  fading  in  the  west.  The  soft  and  mellow 
light  of  the  gloaming  was  just  beginning  to  creep  over 
the  emerald  velvet  of  the  meadows  and  the  dense 
foliage  of  the  slumbering  elms.  Far  below  lay  the 
quaint  city,  so  beautiful  in  its  carved  and  timber- 
crossed  antiquity,  so  venerable  with  historic  associ- 
ation and  with  martial  and  poetic  renown.  At  a  little 
distance  the  "  antique  spires "  and  lancet  casements 
of  Eton  glimmered  in  the  last  faint  rays  of  sunset 
gold.  Many  church  towers,  gray  and  solemn  and 
ancient,  were  dimly  visible  on  the  darkening  plains. 
The  old  Thames,  black  and  shining,  flowed  in  sweet 
tranquillity  through  the  peaceful  scene.  The  evening 
wind  was  laden  with  fragrance  of  syringa  and  jasmine. 
Over  and  around  the  great  central  tower  of  the  castle 
a  multitude  of  birds,  warned  homeward  by  impending 
night,  circled  with  incessant  motion  and  strange,  melo- 
dious cries.  And  out  from  the  somber,  mysterious 
sanctity  of  Saint  George's  Chapel,  borne  tremulous  on 
the  perfumed  twilight  air,  came  the  sobbing  organ 
music  of  the  vesper  hymn.    In  that  solemn  hour  it  was 


€f)c  3llftor.  25 

again,  and  more  deeply  than  ever,  impressed  upon  my 
mind  that  the  divine  privilege  of  art  and  the  supreme 
obligation  of  every  intellect  engaged  in  its  ministry  are 
to  diffuse  and  to  secure  for  all  the  people  this  superb 
exaltation  of  the  soul  —  to  set  upon  the  familiar  face  of 
our  every-day  lives  the  immortal  seal  of  spiritual  refine- 
ment, the  sacred  radiance  of  gentleness  and  beauty. 


Cljc  Critic. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED  AT  A  MIDNIGHT  SUPPER  AT  DALY'S 

theater,  new  york,  april   13,  1887,  com- 
memorating  the   one    hundredth 
performance  of  "  the  taming 
of  the  shrew." 

Mr.  Daly,  and  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

AS  I  gaze  across  this  red  and  white  and  golden 
morning  sea  of  beauty  and  behold  the  radiant 
faces  of  this  brilliant  company  I  feel  that  indeed  it  is 
a  great  privilege  to  be  here,  and  deeply  do  I  wish  that 
any  words  of  mine  could  adequately  express  my  sense 
of  its  value.  The  card  of  invitation  that  came  to  me 
l)ore  upon  its  enticing  but  delusive  front  the  cheerfully 
significant  legend,  "  Nothing  but  sit  and  sit,  and  eat 
and  eat."  There  was  no  reference  to  "speak  and 
speak."  There  was  no  intimation  of  the  present  emer- 
gency. You  will  not  believe  me  when  I  state  that  I 
have  nothing  to  say  —  but  perhaps  you  may  become 
convinced  when  I  proceed  to  prove  it. 

Persons  who  like  myself  are  beginning  to  fade  into 
the  background  of  practical  affairs  receive  from  time  to 
time  little  intimations,  imperceptible  to  others  but  vis- 
ible to  themselves,  that  they  are  passing  out  of  remem- 
brance.   I  should  not  have  been  much  surprised  had  I 

26 


€|)e  Critic.  27 

found  myself  almost  forgotten  here ;  and  when  General 
Sherman,  who  never  disappoints  expectation,  looked 
for  me  in  the  person  of  my  esteemed  friend  Marshall 
Wilder  I  was  not  in  the  least  astonished.  There  is  an 
old  yarn  about  a  negro  preacher  who,  holding  forth  to 
his  sable  congregation,  spoke  somewhat  as  follows : 
"  'And  unto  Enoch  was  born  Irad  :  And  Irad  forgot 
Mehujael,  and  Mehujael  forgot  Methusael,  and  Methu- 
sael  forgot  Lamech,  and  Lamech  took  unto  him  two 
wives  and  forgot  Jabel,'  Now,  my  beloved  bruddren, 
dis  text  am  meant  to  show  you  fustly,  dat  dem  ole  patri- 
archs dey  was  mighty  forgitful." 

But,  in  sober  earnest,  I  find  myself  most  kindly  re- 
membered, and  it  is  with  a  grateful  heart  that  I  thank 
you  for  the  exceeding  grace  and  good-will  with  which 
my  name  has  been  mentioned  and  received.  Such  an 
audience  might  well  abash  a  much  more  practised 
speaker.  Here  sits  the  illustrious  Slierman  —  "Our 
greatest,  yet  with  least  pretense  "  —  destined  ever  to 
be  remembered  among  the  honored  military  chieftains 
of  the  earth ;  here  Mark  Twain,  most  characteristic 
humorist  in  our  land  of  homely  wits  and  quaint  philos- 
ophers; here  Wilson  Barrett,  that  well-deserving  pillar 
of  the  British  stage,  happily  free  now  from  "  the  trap- 
pings and  the  suits  of  woe  "  in  which  he  was  lately  be- 
wildered; here  "the  frolic  and  the  gentle"  Howard 
Furness,  wisest  of  our  American  Shakspere  scholars; 
here  Laurence  Hutton,  chief  historian  of  our  stage, 
wearing  his  knowledge  lightly,  like  a  flower,  and 
already  "a  mine  of  memories":  here  Lester  Wallack, 
the  glorious  comedian,  keeping  bright  and  pure  the 


2  8  €!)c  Victor. 

splendid  comedy  traditions  of  Wilks,  and  Lewis,  and 
EUiston,  and  Charles  Kemble,  and  his  renowned  and 
lamented  father;  here,  on  every  side,  the  worthies 
of  the  stage,  the  bench,  the  bar,  and  the  press ;  and 
sown  among  them  like  stars  that  glint  through  the 
murmuring  foliage  of  a  summer  night  the  fair  faces 
and  imperial  figures  of  women  whom  we  all  admire 
and  love.  A  royal  company !  "  When  comes  tliere 
such  another  ?"  I  am  rebuked  and  humiliated  when  I 
try  to  speak  in  such  a  presence. 

Yet  there  is  a  word  of  tribute  that  I  should  like 
to  utter.  The  whole  of  Mr.  Daly's  career  as  a 
theatrical  manager,  extending  through  a  period  of 
eighteen  years,  is  intimately  known  to  me  —  for  in  my 
professional  vocation  I  have  followed  him  every  step 
of  the  way.  He  was  scarcely  more  than  a  boy  when 
first  he  unfurled  his  audacious  banner  in  this  dramatic 
capital.  He  has  had  times  of  disaster  and  gloom, 
but  he  has  never  flinched  nor  faltered;  he  has  borne 
that  banner  onward  through  many  an  hour  of  conflict 
and  trial,  through  many  a  scene  of  triumph,  past 
many  an  obstacle  of  disappointment,  and  into  many 
a  field  of  victory  ;  and  I,  for  one  —  not  doubting  that 
I  have  given  him  abundance  of  trouble  in  the  course 
of  that  time  —  am  proud  and  happy  now  to  bear  my 
testimony  to  the  fertility  of  resource,  the  unerring 
sagacity,  the  instant  promptitude,  the  amazing  ex- 
pedition, the  incessant  energy,  the  keen  knowledge 
of  the  spirit  of  these  times,  the  taste  and  learning  and 
munificence  with  which  he  has  exercised  his  function 
as  a  manager;  until  now  he  stands  enrolled,  by  the 


€I)C  Critic,  29 

undisputed  virtue  of  his  merit  and  achievement,  among 
the  authentic  leaders  of  the  stage  —  honored  and  pros- 
perous at  home,  and  known  and  famed  equally  on  the 
slopes  of  the  Pacific  and  in  distant  Germany,  France, 
and  England.  We  who  are  assembled  here  to  celebrate 
the  one  hundredth  performance  of  "  The  Taming  of 
the  Shrew "  have  not  failed,  I  am  sure,  to  note  the 
significance  of  those  earnest  and  generous  felicitations 
with  which  the  younger  manager  has  been  greeted  by 
his  veteran  brother  in  art.  So  did  Ulysses  honor 
Troilus.  In  the  history  of  the  New-York  stage  we 
have  arrived  at  a  point  where  it  is  easy  to  forecast 
the  future ;  and  I  think  you  will  understand  me  when 
I  declare  the  belief  that  the  scepter  which  falls  from 
the  hand  of  Lester  Wallack  will  pass,  without  one  word 
of  dissent,  one  impulse  of  contest,  or  one  thought  of 
disapproval,  into  the  hand  of  Augustin  Daly. 

"  The  youngest  son  of  Priam  ;  a  true  knight ; 
Speaking  in  deeds,  and  deedless  in  his  tongue." 

Some  of  us  at  this  table  pass  our  lives  in  writing 
the  record  of  the  acted  drama.  It  is  a  strange  exist- 
ence. It  is  a  life  of  many  tribulations.  It  exacts  alle- 
giance to  high  and  stern  principles  of  intellectual  and 
moral  duty,  and  at  the  same  time  it  imposes  conditions 
of  physical  discomfort  and  nervous  irritation  such  as 
the  oppressed  hod-carrier  and  the  starving  seamstress 
never  knew  arid  never  would  endure.  It  is  a  sort  of 
maelstrom  of  literary  destiny,  from  which  no  man  that 
once  enters  it  can  ever  be  delivered.  I  have  had 
nearly  thirty  years  of  continuous  service  in  that  line 


30  €^c  sector. 

of  labor,  enduring  and  discussing  all  that  has  been 
offered  upon  the  New-York  stage  within  that  time  — 
and  I  am  still  alive  to  mention  it.  The  weather,  the 
crowds,  the  vile  air,  the  haste,  the  anxiety,  the  mid- 
night drudgery,  the  newspaper  squabbles,  the  alien- 
ated friendships,  the  cackle  of  defamatory  detraction  — 
I  have  encountered  and  endured  them  all ;  and, 
worse  than  all,  that  incessant,  perennial  pest  who 
exists  for  the  sole  and  single  purpose  of  saying,  "  What 
do  you  think  of  it  ? "  I  know,  indeed,  what  good 
reason  actors  have  to  be  dissatisfied  with  much  that  is 
written  about  their  vocation.  The  American  iron- 
monger who  was  taken  into  Stratford  Church  to  see 
the  tomb  of  Shakspere,  and  whose  friend  reproached 
him  for  tapping  on  the  altar-rail  with  his  jack-knife, 
said  he  was  bound  to  find  out  whether,  in  a  country 
having  very  little  iron,  the  fences  were  made  solid  or 
hollow ;  and  on  being  reproved  for  lack  of  reverence 
he  further  stated  that  the  grave  of  the  man  who  wrote 
"  Damon  and  Pythias  "  and  "  The  Lady  of  Lyons  " 
was  a  matter  of  no  consequence  to  him.  Much  of  the 
dramatic  criticism  of  the  day  appears  to  proceed  from 
just  that  sort  of  person  —  or  perhaps  from  such  dames 
as  the  lady  who,  on  hearing  that  story,  declared 
with  vehemence  that  some  people  have  no  respect 
even  for  those  great  works  of  Shakspere.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  our  period  is  rich  beyond  precedent  in  its 
intellectual  effort  to  recognize  and  honor  and  celebrate 
the  stage.  An  actor  —  naturally  the  most  sensitive  of 
all  artists,  for  the  sufficient  reason  that  himself  and  not 
merely  his  work  is  on  public  exhibition  —  receives,  for 


€fjc  Critic.  31 

that  very  reason  among  others,  a  greater  degree  of  con- 
sideration than  is  awarded  to  even  the  greatest  states- 
man of  the  century.  We  who  discuss  actors  and  acting 
walk  on  anything  but  roses  and  couch  on  anything  but 
down.  We  must  take  our  fate  as  it  comes.  To  know 
the  literature  of  the  drama ;  to  discriminate  betwixt 
literature  and  acting;  to  see  the  mental,  moral,  and 
spiritual  aspect  of  the  stage,  and  likewise  to  see  the 
expedient,  the  popular,  even  the  mercenary  aspect  of 
it;  to  hold  the  scale  true;  to  write  for  a  great  public  of 
miscellaneous  readers,  and  at  the  same  time  to  respect 
the  feelings  and  ambitions  of  artists;  to  praise  with  dis- 
cretion and  yet  with  force,  so  as  to  indicate  somewhat 
more  than  the  fervor  of  an  animated  clam  ;  to  censure 
without  asperity;  to  think  quickly  and  speak  quickly, 
yet  make  no  error;  to  check,  oppose,  and  discomfit,  on 
all  occasions,  the  leveling  spirit  of  sordid  "  business  " 
interest,  which  is  forever  striving  to  degrade  every  high 
ideal  and  mobble  it  in  the  ruck  of  mediocrity;  to  give 
not  alone  your  knowledge,  and  study,  and  technical 
skill,  but  the  best  power  of  your  mind  and  the  deepest 
feelings  of  your  heart  to  the  transfiguration  and  em- 
bellishment of  the  labor  of  others  —  this  in  part  it  is 
to  work  in  the  groove  of  the  dramatic  reviewer.  I  say 
it  is  a  painful  toil,  incessant,  arduous,  harassing,  and 
framed  to  try  the  utmost  patience  of  human  nature. 
But  it  has  its  bright  side ;  for,  as  years  speed  on  and 
life  grows  bleak  and  lonesome  and  commonplace,  it 
is  the  stage  that  gives  us  our  relief  from  paltry  con- 
ventionality and  iron-bound  routine ;  it  is  the  stage, 
with  its  sunshine  of  humor  and  its  boundless  realm 


32  €ljc  5l!ctor, 

of  imagination,  that  wiles  us  away  from  our  defeated 
ambitions,  our  waning  fortunes,  the  broken  idols  and 
wasted  hopes  of  our  vanishing  youth.  What  happy 
dreams  it  has  inspired  and  fostered !  What  grand  ideals 
it  has  imparted  and  nourished  !  With  what  gentle, 
tender,  impassioned  friendships  it  has  blessed  and 
beautified  our  lives ! 

I  know  not  what  is  done  here  to  the  adventurous 
person  who  launches  a  serious  poem  into  a  merry  fes- 
tival. Years  ago,  when  the  patriotic  spirit  of  the  nation 
was  all  ablaze,  we  happened  to  have  the  Italian  opera 
at  our  Academy  of  Music,  and  on  one  occasion  it  was 
thought  expedient  to  introduce  "The  Star-Spangled 
Banner"  into  a  performance  of  "  La  Traviata,"  much 
to  the  dismay  of  the  sunny  children  of  Italy;  and  two 
of  the  choristers  were  heard  to  discuss  this  portent. 
"What  is  it,"  said  one  of  them,  "  that  I  hear  of  ze  ban- 
naire  and  ze  star  ?  "  "  It  is  ze  Star-Spangle  Bannaire!  A 
man  named  Key  write  him :  and  Dan  Sickles  he  shoot 
him  for  it  —  and  serve  him  very  well  right."  I  will, 
however,  take  the  risk,  and  will  repeat  a  few  lines  of 
mine,  called  "  The  Signal  Light,"  which  perhaps  are 
not  inappropriate  to  the  hour  and  the  scene: 

The  lonely  sailor,  when  the  night 

O'er  ocean's  glimmering  waste  descends. 

Sets  at  the  peak  his  signal  light 
And  fondly  dreams  of  absent  friends. 

Starless  the  sky  above  him  broods, 

Pathless  the  waves  beneath  him  swell; 

Through  peril's  spectral  solitudes 
That  beacon  streams  —  and  all  is  well. 


Z^t  Critic,  ss 


So,  on  the  wandering  sea  of  years, 
When  now  the  evening  closes  round, 

I  light  the  signal  torch  that  cheers. 
And  scan  the  wide  horizon's  bound. 

The  night  is  dark,  the  winds  are  loud, 
The  black  waves  follow,  fast  and  far. 

Yet  once  may  flash,  through  mist  and  cloud, 
The  radiance  of  some  answering  star. 

Haply  across  the  shuddering  deep. 
One  moment  seen,  a  snowy  sail 

May  glance  with  one  tumultuous  leap 
And  pass  with  one  exultant  hail. 

And  I  shall  dearly,  sweetly  know. 

Though  night  be  dark  and  storm  be  drear. 

That  somewhere  still  the  roses  blow. 
And  hearts  are  true  and  friends  are  near ! 

Each  separate  on  the  eternal  main 
We  make  for  one  celestial  shore ; 

Sometimes  we  part  to  meet  again. 
Sometimes  we  part  to  meet  no  more. 

Ah,  friends,  make  glad  the  gracious  day 
When  sunshine  bathes  the  tranquil  tide 

And,  careless  as  a  child  at  play, 

Our  ship^  drift  onward  side  by  side. 

Too  oft,  with  cold  and  barren  will, 

And  stony  pride  of  iron  sway. 
We  bid  the  voice  of  love  be  still. 

And  dash  the  cup  of  joy  away. 

No  comfort  haunts  the  yellow  leaf! 

Wait  not  till,  broken,  old,  and  sere, 
The  sad  heart  pines,  in  hopeless  grief, 

For  one  sweet  voice  it  cannot  hear. 


34  ^t  sector* 


Thought  has  its  throne,  and  Power  its  glow. 
And  Wealth  its  time  of  transient  ease — 

But  best  of  all  the  hours  we  know 
Are  rose-crowned  hours  that  fleet  like  these. 

Let  laughter  leap  from  every  lip  ! 

To  music  turn  the  perfumed  air ! 
Ye  golden  pennons,  glance  and  dip! 

Ye  crimson  banners,  flash  and  flare ! 

For  them  no  more  the  tempest  glooms, 
Whose  freed  and  royal  spirits  know 

To  frolic  where  the  lilac  blooms, 
And  revel  where  the  roses  blow. 

But  lights  of  heaven  around  them  kiss. 
While  over  silver  seas  they  glide  — 

One  heart,  one  hope,  one  fate,  one  bliss  — 
To  peace  and  silence,  side  by  side. 


€|)e  €omctiiait 

A   TRIBUTE   TO    LESTER  WALLACK. 

delivered  at  a  birthday  feast,  in  honor  of  lester 

wallack,  at  the  lambs  club,  new-york, 

january  i,  1888. 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen: 

IN  this  distinguished  presence,  it  were,  I  think,  better 
for  me  to  remain  silent  than  for  me  to  speak ;  yet, 
since  you  will  compel  me  to  emerge  from  the  obscurity 
of  silence,  I  must  at  least  make  the  endeavor  to  re- 
spond, if  not  with  adequate  words  certainly  with  sin- 
cere feeling,  to  your  generous  welcome.  I  thank  you 
for  the  privilege  of  being  present  at  this  festival.  I  thank 
you  for  the  surprising  kindness  with  which  your  chair- 
man's affectionate  mention  of  my  name  has  been  re- 
ceived. I  was  not  aware  of  the  existence  of  so  strong 
a  sentiment  of  favor  toward  myself  among  the  actors 
of  New- York,  who  are  so  largely  represented  here, 
and  I  must  be  permitted  to  say  that  this  tribute  is  in  a 
high  degree  gratifying  to  my  feelings. 

One  reason  that  induced  me  to  accept  your  thought- 
ful invitation  and  come  to  this  place  was  my  desire  to 
do  all  possible  honor  to  Lester  Wallack,  your  distin- 
guished leader  and  for  many  years  a  dear  and  cherished 
35 


36  CJ)c  3l!ftor. 

friend  of  mine.  Not  that  the  presence  of  so  humble 
an  individual  as  I  am  could  confer  distinction  upon  that 
renowned  leader  of  the  comedy  stage  of  America.  I 
never  thought  that.  But  it  seemed  to  me  that  by  my 
presence  I  might  at  least  express  my  sympathy  and 
respect,  and  I  had  reason  to  believe  that  this  would 
not  be  unwelcome  to  him.  There  comes  a  time  in 
every  man's  life  when  the  clouds  begin  to  gather  and 
the  shadows  to  deepen  around  him;  when  in  the  secret 
chambers  of  his  soul  the  voice  of  experience  whispers 
its  solemn  admonition  that  there  is  no  one  whom  the 
world  cannot  spare.  In  that  somber  twilight  of  decline 
he  naturally  turns  toward  his  friends.  He  is  wishful 
to  feel  that  they  remember  him  and  love  him ;  that  he 
still  has  a  place  in  their  hearts,  and  that  he  is  still 
recognized  and  honored  in  the  community  to  which 
the  labor  of  his  lifetime  has  been  devoted.  The  least 
that  we  can  do  for  a  friend,  when  that  hour  comes,  is  to 
rally  around  him  and  take  him  by  the  hand. 

Another  reason  that  I  had  for  coming  hither  was 
my  desire  to  see  and  hear  the  representative  actors  of 
New- York  in  the  present  day.  At  a  time  which  by 
many  of  you  must  already  begin  to  be  regarded  as 
the  distant  past  it  was  my  fortunate  privilege  to  live  in 
association  —  intimate  in  some  cases,  pleasant  in  all  — 
with  many  actors  who  were  leaders  of  the  stage,  or 
were  conspicuous  ornaments  upon  it;  with  James  W. 
Wallack,  jr.,  and  Edwin  L.  Davenport,  Mark  Smith 
and  Humphrey  Bland,  George  Holland  and  John  Sef- 
ton,  John  Brougham  and  John  E.  Owens,  George 
Jamieson  and  George  Jordan,  Daniel  E.  Setchell  and 


€f)c  Comcbian*  37 


Tom  Placide,  Dolly  Davenport  and  A.  W.  Young, 
Barney  Williams  and  Owen  Marlowe,  John  McCul- 
lough  and  Edwin  Adams,  Edward  A.  Sothern  and 
William  R.  Floyd,  Reynolds,  Norton,  Hind,  Hanley, 
Raymond,  and  many  more.  They  were  the  com- 
panions of  my  every-day  life.  They  partook  of  my 
social  pleasures,  as  I  did  of  theirs.  I  knew  their  feel- 
ings, their  ambitions,  their  aspirations.  One  by  one 
those  friends  have  been  withdrawn,  "  to  where,  be- 
yond these  voices,  there  is  peace."  To  me  also  time 
and  experience  have  taught  the  solemn  lesson  of  vicis- 
situde, evanescence,  and  resignation.  The  flowers  are 
still  fragrant  and  the  leaves  still  rustle;  but  the  frag- 
rance is  of  flowers  that  have  been  gathered,  and  the 
leaves  that  rustle  no  longer  hang  upon  the  branches 
but  lie  withering  upon  the  ground.  In  this  company 
to-night  I  feel  like  one  who  has  survived  from  a  re- 
mote and  half-forgotten  period,  to  see  the  pageant  and 
to  hear  the  music  of  a  new  order  of  things. 

And  all  that  I  have  seen  and  heard  here  has  im- 
pressed and  delighted  me.  Especially  am  I  impressed 
and  delighted  by  your  affectionate  appreciation  of  your 
distinguished  leader.  He  deserves  it  all.  The  charac- 
ter and  achievements  of  Lester  Wallack  are  in  a  high 
degree  valuable  and  significant  to  the  members  of  your 
profession.  He  is  one  of  the  few  remaining  actors  of 
the  old  school  who  to  some  extent  preserve  for  our 
time  all  that  is  best  in  the  traditions  of  the  English- 
speaking  stage.  He  has  been  an  actor  during  forty-four 
years  —  forty  of  those  years  in  New-York.  His  career 
illumines  a  far-reaching  backward  vista  in  theatrical 


38  €J)c  sector. 


history.  Looking  upon  him  to-night,  remembering  the 
parts  that  he  has  played  and  reviewing  the  work  that 
he  has  accomphshed,  I  see  in  that  golden  perspective 
the  long  anil  stately  line  of  his  dramatic  ancestry  —  the 
royal  figure  of  Robert  Wilks,  the  magnificent  William 
Lewis,  the  superb  Elliston,  the  courtly  Charles  Kemble, 
the  brilliant  Charles  Mathews,  and  that  illustrious 
VVallack  whose  name  was  his  opulent  inheritance  and 
whose  great  reputation  he  has  so  worthily  maintained. 
Treading  in  their  footsteps  Lester  VVallack  wears  their 
laurels  and  transmits  their  example.  It  is  no  common 
ability  and  no  common  devotion  which  have  thus  kept 
alive  the  sacred  flame  that  was  lighted  in  the  great 
days  of  Wilks  and  Cibber,  Kynaston  and  Mountfort, 
upon  the  altar  of  English  Comedy. 

In  one  of  the  old  theatrical  books  there  is  a  record 
of  a  remark  made  by  George  Frederick  Cooke  to  John 
Phillip  Kemble,  in  the  days  while  yet  they  were  on 
good  terms  with  each  other:  "John,"  he  said,  "if  you 
and  I  were  pounded  together  in  a  mortar  we  should 
not  make  a  limb  of  a  Garrick !  "  This  was  the  tes- 
timony of  one  of  the  greatest  actors  that  ever  lived 
— an  actor  who  had  seen  Garrick  and  Spranger  Barry; 
an  actor  who  surpassed  Henderson ;  an  actor  whose 
genius  inspired  even  so  great  a  man  as  Edmund  Kean 
—  and  this  testimony  was  given  in  recognition  of  the 
unrivaled  greatness  of  a  comedian.  For  this,  beyond 
a  doubt,  was  the  distinctive  royalty  of  David  Garrick, 
who,  in  the  fullness  of  his  fame,  at  the  summit  of  his 
greatness,  when  at  length  he  retired  from  the  stage, 
took  leave  of  the  public  not  in  a  character  of  tragedy 


€fjc  Comcbian.  39 


but  in  a  character  of  comedy;  playing  not  King 
Lear,  in  which  he  had  been  simply  famous,  but  Don 
Felix,  in  which  he  was  unrivaled  and  supreme.  These 
facts  point  to  a  conclusion  of  practical  and  far-reach- 
ing significance.  Nobody  dreams  of  depreciating  the 
tragic  art  or  its  great  professors  —  the  art  that  im- 
plicates Hamlet,  Macbeth,  and  Richard ;  the  art  that 
has  given  to  the  American  stage  its  Cooper,  its  Mary 
Duff,  its  Edwin  Forrest,  and  its  Edwin  Booth.  But 
—  '■'■Interdum  tamen  et  vocem  Comcedia  tollit.^''  The 
noble  actor  whom  you  honor  to-night  will  be  remem- 
bered by  posterity  as  a  great  comedian.  In  the  line 
indicated  by  such  characters  as  Sir  Oswin  Mortlatid, 
Harry  Jasper,  De  Ligny,  Rover,  Evelyn,  Valentine, 
Prosper  Coiiramont,  Don  Felix,  and  Harry  Dor n ton, 
he  never,  in  our  day,  has  had  an  equal.  To  those 
who  know  the  literature  of  comedy  this  simple  state- 
ment (which  cannot  successfully  be  controverted,  and 
which  I  am  sure  no  New- York  play-goer  of  ripe  ex- 
perience would  think  of  denying)  is  a  volume  in  itself. 
It  is  my  wish  on  this  occasion  carefully  to  avoid 
saying  any  word  that  might  be  considered  sad  or 
harsh ;  but  I  cannot  omit  to  declare  my  conviction 
that  the  retirement  of  this  superb  comedian  from  the 
active  pursuit  of  the  stage  is  a  cause  for  public  sorrow. 
Wallack's  Theater  without  Lester  Wallack  at  the  head 
of  it  is  no  longer  an  institution  —  it  is  the  shadow  of  a 
name.  But  it  is  always  the  part  of  wisdom  to  look  the 
facts  of  life  squarely  in  the  face.  When  a  man  comes 
near  the  verge  of  three-score  years  and  ten  he  is  en- 
titled to  wish  to  retire  from  the  responsibilities,  the 


40  Zt\c  31! f tor. 

strife,  the  tumult,  the  stress  and  strain  of  active  conflict 
in  the  field  of  public  life.  Lester  Wallack  did  not 
relinquish  the  control  of  Wallack's  Theater  because  he 
was  a  failure,  but  because  as  a  manager  his  work  was 
done.  For  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  succeeding 
his  lamented  father's  death  —  in  1864  —  he  conducted 
that  house,  and  his  noble  career  was  now  rounded  and 
fulfilled.  We  are  living  in  a  period  of  change.  Every 
man  of  conservative  ideas  and  feelings  has  felt  its 
pressure.  The  ideas  and  feelings  of  Lester  Wallack, 
as  to  the  province  of  the  art  of  acting  and  the  relation 
of  the  stage  to  society,  were  probably  no  longer  in 
practical  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  these  times.  In 
my  own  humble  sphere,  in  the  press,  I  have  seen  the 
introduction  and  gradual  prevalence  of  ideas  and  cus- 
toms which  fill  me  with  solicitude  and  dismay.  They 
are,  perhaps,  right ;  but  if  so,  all  the  convictions  and 
practice  of  my  past  life  have  been  wrong.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  they  will  prevail.  There  is  now  a  vast  multi- 
tude of  persons  to  be  amused,  and  for  that  multitude 
the  chromo-lithograph  has  taken  the  place  (although 
good  things  are  still  here  and  there  accomplished  upon 
the  stage)  of  the  more  valuable  forms  of  dramatic 
art.  "  The  old  order  changes,"  and,  one  by  one,  we 
who  cling  to  ancient  views  and  customs  must  vanish 
with  the  faith  to  which  we  cling.  I  have  but  a  single 
thought  to  add,  and  I  will  speak  it  in  the  words  of 
Tennyson,  in  his  sublime  poem  of  "Ulysses" — words 
which  express,  with  such  profound  conviction  and  such 
noble  eloquence,  the  strength  and  sufficiency  of  a  res- 
olute will  to  sustain  us  against  the  ills  of  this  mortal 


Clje  Comcbian*  41 


state  and  make  us  steadfast  amid  the  shattered  and 
crumbHng  pageantry  of  human  life  and  worldly  fortune. 
I  should  like  to  think  that  these  words  fall  from  Lester 
Wallack's  lips  —  here  spoken  to  you  by  him  : 

"  Push  off,  and  sitting  well  in  order  smite 

The  sounding  furrows  ;  for  my  purpose  holds 

To  sail  beyond  the  sunset  and  the  baths 

Of  all  the  western  stars,  until  I  die. 

It  may  be  that  the  gulfs  will  wash  us  down ; 

It  may  be  we  shall  touch  the  Happy  Isles, 

And  see  the  great  Achilles,  whom  we  loved. 

Though  much  is  taken,  much  abides  ;  and  though 

We  are  not  now  that  strength  which  in  old  days 

Moved  earth  and  heaven,  that  which  we  are,  we  are  — 

One  equal  temper  of  heroic  mind 

Made  weak  by  time  and  fate,  but  strong  in  will, 

To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find,  and  not  to  yield." 


READ  AT  A  BANQUET  TO  LESTER  WALLACK,*  AT  THE 
LOTOS  CLUB,  NEW-YORK,  DECEMBER  17,  1887. 


WITH  a  glimmer  of  plumes  and  a  sparkle  of  lances. 
With  blare  of  the  trumpet  and  neigh  of  the  steed, 
At  morning  they  rode  where  the  bright  river  glances 

And  the  sweet  summer  wind  ripples  over  the  mead. 

The  green  sod  beneath  them  was  ermined  with  daisies, 

Smiling  up  to  green  boughs  tossing  wild  in  their  glee, 

While  a  thousand  glad  hearts  sang  their  honors  and 

praises, 

Where  the  Knights  of  the  Mountain  rode  down  to 

the  sea. 

IL 

One  rode  'neath  the  banner  whose  face  was  the  fairest, 

Made  royal  with  deeds  that  his  manhood  had  done. 
And  the  halo  of  blessing  fell  richest  and  rarest 

On  his  armor  that  splintered  the  shafts  of  the  sun. 
So  moves  o'er  the  waters  the  cygnet  sedately; 

So  waits  the  strong  eagle  to  mount  on  the  wing ; 
Serene  and  puissant  and  simple  and  stately, 

So  shines  among  Princes  the  form  of  the  King ! 

*  John  Johnstone  Wallack,  known  lo  the  stage  as  Lester  Wal- 
lack,  was  born  on  December  31,  1819,  and  died  on  September 
6,  1888. 

42 


^it  J)crccbaL  43 


III. 

With  a  gay  bugle-note,  when  the  daylight's  last  glimmer 

Smites,  crimson  and  gold,  on  the  snow  of  his  crest. 
At  evening  he  rides,  through  the  shades  growing  dim- 
mer. 

While  the  banners  of  sunset  stream  red  in  the  west. 
His  comrades  of  morning  are  scattered  and  parted  — 

The  clouds  hanging   low  and  the  winds   making 
moan  — 
But,  smiling  and  dauntless  and  brave  and  true-hearted, 

All  proudly  he  rides  down  the  valley,  alone. 

IV. 

Sweet  gales  of  the  woodland,  embrace  and  caress  him ! 

White  wings  of  renown,  be  his  comfort  and  light! 
Pale  dews  of  the  star-beam,  encompass  and  bless  him 

With  the  peace  and  the  balm  and  the  glory  of  night! 
And,  oh,  while  he  wends  to  the  verge  of  that  ocean 

Where  the  years,  like  a  garland,  shall  fall  from  his 
brow. 
May  his  glad  heart  exult  in  the  tender  devotion  — 

The  love  that  encircles  and  hallows  him  now ! 


€1)0  Cmnratie. 

AMERICAN    AND    ENGLISH    FELLOWSHIP 
IN  ART. 

SPEECH  DELIVERED    AT  THE  ANNUAL   DINNER   OF   THE 
GREEN-ROOM    CLUB,   OF    LONDON,   AT   THE    CRITE- 
RION   HALL,    PICCADILLY,   JUNE   3,    1 888. 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  : 

IN  gazing  upon  this  remarkable  assemblage  of  repre- 
sentative Englishmen,  many  of  whom  are  distin- 
guished—  and  worthily  distinguished  —  in  the  great 
art  of  acting  and  in  the  still  greater  art  of  literature,  I 
am  deeply  penetrated  with  a  saddening  sense  of  my 
unworthiness  to  speak  in  this  presence.  Left  to  myself 
my  instinct  would  have  instructed  me  to  remember, 
with  the  old  poet,  that  "  They  also  serve  who  only 
stand  and  wait";  and  so  remembering  to  remain 
silent.  Since,  however,  I  am  not  left  to  myself,  since 
you  have  done  me  the  great  honor  to  ask  me  to  respond 
to  the  pleasant  sentiment  with  which  my  name  has 
been  graciously  and  gracefully  associated,  I  must 
at  least  endeavor  to  express  —  what  I  deeply  feel  —  a 
grateful  sense  of  your  generous  favor  and  kindly  con- 
sideration. In  what  way  shall  that  endeavor  be  made? 
Phrases  of  conventional  courtesy  would  be  inadequate 
44 


\ 


€f)e  Comratic*  45 


equally  to  your  worth  and  to  my  profound  sense  of 
it.  Once,  when  your  illustrious  sailor  Nelson  was 
in  action,  fighting  the  glorious  battle  of  the  Baltic, 
and  had  occasion  to  send  a  despatch  to  the  King  of 
Denmark, —  the  situation  being  momentous  and  the 
crisis  supreme, —  he  refused  to  seal  that  missive  with  a 
wafer,  but  delayed  until  he  could  seal  it  in  the  old, 
stately  way,  with  wax ;  for,  said  he,  this  is  no  time  to 
omit  ceremony.  Your  compliment,  as  I  entirely  under- 
stand, is  not  offered  especially  to  me,  but  in  part  to 
that  eminent  journal  across  the  ocean  (the  Tribune, 
of  New- York),  in  which  for  many  years  I  have  con- 
tinuously and  zealously  labored  to  advocate  that  sym- 
pathetic alliance  between  the  stage  and  society  which 
promotes  the  welfare  of  both ;  and  in  part  to  your 
numerous  American  friends  and  comrades,  absent  as 
well  as  present,  whom  I  know  you  are  glad  to  honor, 
and  for  whom  you  are  kindly  wishful  that  a  few  words 
should  be  spoken  by  one  of  their  countrymen.  This, 
accordingly,  is  no  time  to  omit  a  thoughtful  and  earnest 
consideration  of  your  wishes.  One  cannot  be  a  Nel- 
son—  but  one  can  follow  a  good  example. 

It  was  long  ago  recorded  of  your  famous  orator. 
Fox,  that  he  once  said,  when  speaking  of  Pitt  and 
himself  as  orators,  "  I  can  always  find  a  word,  but  Pitt 
could  always  find  the  word."  One  would  be  very  glad 
to  find  the  word,  and  to  speak  it  at  a  moment  like  this. 
Perhaps  I  shall  not  be  far  wrong  if  I  say  that  a  signifi- 
cant fact  of  this  occasion  is  its  union  of  American  with 
English  votaries  of  dramatic  art.  No  fact  could  be 
more  auspicious  for  the  stage.    Great  interests  of  every 


46  Cfjc  5Cctor. 

kind  are  implicated  in  the  friendship  of  the  two  coun- 
tries, and  nothing  surely  can  be  more  important  than 
a  clear,  and  right,  and  sympathetic  understanding  and 
alliance  between  the  art  communities  of  the  motherland 
and  her  now  entirely  mature,  wholly  independent,  and 
perhaps  somewhat  defiant  and  turbulent  child.  We, 
in  America,  understand  you — because  affection  is 
clear-sighted,  and  our  love  for  you  makes  us  wise,  at 
least  in  this.  Do  you,  in  England,  wholly  understand 
us? 

Only  a  few  days  have  passed  since  the  clods  of  the 
valley  were  cast  upon  the  ashes  of  one  of  the  clearest 
and  loftiest  thinkers,  one  of  the  most  sublime  and 
tender  poets,  one  of  the  noblest  and  gentlest  spirits 
that  ever  lived  —  even  in  this  rich  realm,  so  fertile  of 
genius  and  renown.  In  all  your  hearts  the  laureled 
name  of  Matthew  Arnold  will  at  once  be  whispered. 
I  knew  him  a  little ;  I  loved  him  much ;  and  here, 
almost  beside  his  sacred  dust,  I  would  speak  no  word 
of  him  except  in  reverence.  Yet  it  may  be  said  — 
and,  indeed,  it  ought  to  be  said  —  that  his  comprehen- 
sive condemnation  of  America  —  that  ungentle  verdict 
which  fell  from  his  pen  almost  as  his  pen  dropped 
from  his  grasp  forever  —  was  in  a  degree  mistaken. 
He  told  us  that  our  country  is  uninteresting  and  that 
we  have  produced  no  literature,  and  thus,  by  impli- 
cation, no  art  of  any  kind  that  is  worth  consideration. 
It  is  a  singular  judgment ;  but  it  may  be  regarded  as  a 
typical  manifestation  of  that  part  of  the  current  of 
English  critical  thought  which  runs  adversely  to  Amer- 
ica :  and  for  that  reason  it  is  mentioned  now. 


€(jc  (Tomratic.  47 


Certain  things  that  Arnold  said  of  us  are  true. 
America  does  not  possess  that  delicious  charm  which 
is  the  outward  and  visible  glory  of  England — vener- 
able, storied,  and  romantic  antiquity,  hallowed  by  pas- 
toral beauty  ;  and  if  it  be  meant  that  the  American 
people  have  developed  more  in  a  material  than  a  spirit- 
ual direction  that  thouglit  is  sound  and  just.  The 
sweet  serenity  of  noble  rapture  which  interfuses  the 
poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold,  and  which  wherever 
found  is  the  authentic  sign  of  man's  spiritual  victory 
over  the  senses  and  the  world,  is  not  common  in 
America;  but  then,  I  believe,  it  is  not  common  any- 
where. Our  most  dangerous  and  deplorable  character- 
istic—  which  he  did  not  mention  —  is  flippant  cyni- 
cism. I  could  wish  that  there  were  in  America  more 
reverence  for  the  ideal,  more  sincerity  of  simple,  in- 
genuous human  feeling,  even  at  the  sacrifice  of  much 
enterprise  and  much  humor.  But  the  home  life  of 
America,  if  once  you  come  to  know  it,  is  as  sweet  and 
pure  and  true  as  the  home  life  of  England.  The  fire- 
side and  the  altar,  which  are  the  corner-stones  of  your 
English  civiHzation,  are  as  sacred  there  as  here.  The 
love  of  art,  in  every  one  of  its  forms,  is  as  general  and 
as  keen  with  that  people  as  with  this.  Your  special 
advantage  is  that  you  allow  your  best  national  intelli- 
gence, your  best  of  brain  and  heart,  to  enforce  and 
to  protect,  silently,  sternly,  and  without  appeal,  the 
unwritten  law  of  nobility,  refinement,  and  grace  in 
the  daily  conduct  of  social  life;  not  leaving  those 
things  to  a  judgment  of  the  mob  nor  parading  the 
sanctities  of  the  heart  and  the  hearthstone  in  news- 


48  €l)c  sector. 

papers.  We  shall  reach  that  in  time.  Meanwhile, 
when  you  talk  of  literature  and  art,  if  Emerson  be  not 
a  great  poet  one  would  like  to  know  who  is.  If  Eng- 
lish prose  can  show  a  better  piece  of  romantic  tragedy 
than  Hawthorne's  "  Scarlet  Letter"  I  should  be  grate- 
ful to  make  an  early  acquaintance  with  it.  If  man  in 
his  relations  with  elemental  nature  —  man  on  the  wild 
sea  and  in  the  boundless  forest  —  has  ever  been  more 
truthfully,  nobly,  and  romantically  portrayed  than  in 
those  robust  and  breezy  woodland  and  ocean  stories 
of  Cooper  it  would  be  instructive  to  see  the  picture. 
If  modern  Europe  has  resounded  with  a  more  brilliant 
and  stirring  bugle-call  of  lyrical  poetry  than  that  of 
Whittier  it  would  be  inspiriting  to  catch  the  echo  of 
it.  If  Bryant,  Dana,  Longfellow,  Halleck,  Poe,  Lowell, 
Holmes,  Curtis,  Bayard  Taylor,  Stoddard,  Aldrich,  and 
Stedman  mean  nothing  in  literature  the  inquiring  mind 
would  like  to  know  wherein  literature  consists.  If 
actors  such  as  Edwin  Forrest,  Edwin  Booth,  Joseph 
Jefferson,  Lawrence  Barrett,  Richard  Mansfield,  Char- 
lotte Cushman,  Mary  Anderson,  Clara  Morris,  and 
Ada  Rehan  were  not  "born  in  the  purple"  it  might 
well  be  asked  who  were  and  what  the  purple  means. 
Argumentative  discussion  soon  grows  tedious.  All 
that  I  intended  was  to  suggest  the  fallacy  of  this  ad- 
verse English  criticism  of  America.  The  error  consists 
in  an  inveterate  and  unreasonable  demand  for  new 
forms.  That  which  is  said  of  literature  is  also  said,  or 
is  implied,  of  the  stage.  Let  us  see  fresh  types.  Many 
persons  in  England  have  accepted,  and  have  extolled 
even  to  the  verge  of  extravagance,  one  of  our  authors 


€Ijc  Comrabc.  49 


— Walt  Whitman  —  for  no  better  reason  than  because 
he  has  discarded  all  versification  and  all  prose  as  well, 
and  furnished  in  their  place  an  unmelodious  catalogue 
of  miscellaneous  images,  generally  commonplace  and 
sometimes  coarse.  That  auctioneer  list  of  natural  facts 
and  objects,  that  formless  proclamation  of  carnal  ap- 
petites and  universal  democracy,  was  accepted  as 
grandly  original  only  because  it  was  uncouth.  It 
would  appear  to  be  thought  that  since  three  thousand 
miles  of  ocean  roll  between  the  two  continents  every 
artist  of  the  western  world  is  under  obligation  to  obey 
the  edict  of  Sir  Anthony  Absolute  and  "  get  an  at- 
mosphere and  a  sun  of  his  own."  Distinct  he  should 
be,  whether  writer  or  actor,  and  he  generally  is  so,  in 
all  that  constitutes  mdividuality.  But  surely  it  ought 
to  be  remembered  that  neither  the  English  language 
nor  the  English  heart  changes  because  we  cross  the 
sea.  America  is  simply  bearing  onward  the  standard 
of  art  that  was  first  uplifted  in  England.  Almost  the 
whole  history  of  our  stage,  from  John  Moody  to  Henry 
Irving,  is  the  history  of  English  expeditions  westward, 
leaving  English  traditions  in  the  new  world.  So  too 
is  it  with  our  literature.  Neither  ocean,  prairie,  nor 
wilderness  will  ever  furnish  a  poet  with  a  grander  in- 
strument or  a  more  copious  and  noble  form  of  expres- 
sion than  the  blank  verse  of  Shakspere  and  Milton. 
Insist  on  superlative  excellence  in  the  use  of  that,  if 
you  will;  but  do  not  censure  us  because  we  do  not 
excel!  it.  Not  Polar  snows  nor  blazing  Andes  will 
ever  provide  a  greater  subject  than  the  human  heart, 
human  passions,  human  life.     Poetry  is  the  language 

7 


50  €l)c  ^ftor. 


of  feeling ;  acting  is  the  moving  picture  of  nature;  and 
American  poetry,  American  acting,  American  art,  in 
any  and  every  form,  can  do  no  more  than  to  utter, 
portray,  and  interpret  what  it  feels.  Already,  to  those 
who  know  it  well,  American  art  possesses  a  distinct  and 
valuable  character;  yet,  when  all  is  said,  it  remains, 
and  always  must  be,  and  always  will  be,  and  always 
ought  to  be,  the  continuation  and  kindred  sequence  of 
the  superb  art  of  England. 

And  that  is  why  the  American  votary  of  art  comes 
as  often  as  he  can,  in  thjese  latter  days,  into  England : 
because,  deep  in  his  soul,  a  subtle,  loving  impulse 
steadily  urges  him  backward,  backward,  to  the  fountain 
of  his  blood.  As  on  a  summer  day,  in  the  hot  and 
dusty  city,  the  pale  toiler  pauses  listless  at  his  task 
and  seems  to  see  again  the  long  green  fields  in  which 
he  played  as  a  happy  boy,  the  shimmering  branches 
of  elm  and  willow,  the  sheep  upon  the  hillside,  the 
drifting  summer  clouds,  the  droning  bee-hives,  the  ap- 
ple-blossoms showering  over  the  peaceful  grass,  the 
blue-eyed,  brown-cheeked  girl  who  looked  into  his 
eyes  with  perfect  trust  and  gave  him  his  first  kiss  of 
love, —  so  the  American  pilgrim,  reverent  of  the  past 
and  of  this  great  realm  from  which  he  sprang,  dreamily 
turns  from  the  din  of  incessant  toil  and  strife  around 
him,  the  busy  building  of  the  great  republic  of  all  the 
nations  of  the  world,  and  gladly  and  sadly  lets  his 
thoughts  drift  back  to  the  dear  old  mother-land  that 
to  him  is  the  home  of  perpetual  romance  and  beauty. 
Round  it  are  gloomy  seas  and  over  it  float  forever  the 
changing  mystery  and  pageant  of  smiling  and  frown- 


Zf^e  €omrat!C»  51 


ing  clouds ;  but  its  heart  is  all  sunshine  and  love  — 
the  love  in  which  we  are  basking  to-night;  guests  of 
the  Green-Room  Club,  but  not  of  the  Green-Room 
Club  alone ;  guests  of  Shakspere  and  Br.rbage,  Better- 
ton  and  Garrick,  Kemble  and  Kean,  Mrs.  Siddons  and 
Macready,  and  that  whole  long  line  of  illustrious  actors 
that  ends  with  the  great  name  of  Henry  Irving.  I  can 
only  thank  you  for  the  privilege  that  we  enjoy,  and  for 
the  generous  patience  with  which  you  have  listened  to 
my  words.  Joy  is  more  joyous  to  us,  in  this  land  of 
poetry  and  flowers,  than  it  is  anywhere  else;  and  grief 
comes  more  softly  to  the  stricken  heart  that  must  endure 
and  wait. 


Cf)c  Cragcbinn. 

A  TRIBUTE  TO  EDWIN  BOOTH. 

speech  delivered  at  a  midnight  supper,  in  honor 
of  edwin   booth,  given  by  augustin  daly 
and  a.  m.  palmer,  at  delmonico's,  new- 
york,  march  30,  1889. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  : 

IT  was  my  fortune  many  years  ago  to  be  present  in 
the  old  Boston  Theater  on  a  night  when  that  famous 
American  actor  Edwin  Forrest,  at  the  close  of  an  ex- 
ceedingly prosperous  engagement,  represented  Hamlet 
and  delivered  a  farewell  address.  I  can  see  him  now, 
as  I  saw  him  then, —  not  the  most  intellectual  nor  the 
most  brilliant  figure  in  our  theatrical  history,  but  cer- 
tainly the  most  colossal,  the  most  imposing,  the  most 
definite,  impressive,  inspired  animal  individuality  that 
ever  has  been  seen  upon  the  American  stage;  and  I  can 
hear  his  voice  as  I  then  heard  it,  when,  as  he  gazed 
upon  a  vast  assemblage  of  the  public  and  upon  the 
stage  that  was  literally  covered  with  flowers,  he  said 
—  in  those  magnificent,  vibrating,  organ  tones  of  his, 
which  never  in  our  day  have  been  equaled — "Here, 
indeed,  is  a  miracle  of  culture  —  a  wilderness  of  roses, 
and  not  a  single  thorn !  "  To-night  it  is  my  fortune  to 
be  present  at  this  memorable  feast  of  tribute  to  genius 

62 


€!)c  ^ragctiian.  53 


and  virtue,  and  to  behold  his  great  and  famous  succes- 
sor in  the  leadership  of  tragic  art  in  America  sur- 
rounded by  friends  who  greet  him  with  affection  no 
less  than  homage,  and  who  honor  themselves  rather 
than  him  by  every  denotement  of  respect  and  appreci- 
ation they  possibly  can  give  to  Edwin  Booth ;  and  I 
can  imagine  that  he  also,  looking  upon  your  eager, 
happy,  affectionate  faces,  and  listening  to  your  genial 
eloquence  —  in  this  scene  of  light  and  perfume  and 
joy,  of  high  thought  and  sweetly  serious  feeling,  and 
gentle  mirth  —  may  utter  the  same  exclamation  of 
grateful  pride — '*  Here,  indeed,  is  a  miracle  of  culture 
—  a  wilderness  of  roses,  and  not  a  single  thorn !  " 

For  if  a  man  eminent  in  public  life  and  illustrious  in 
the  realm  of  art  may  not  indulge  a  sentiment  of  honest 
pride  and  grateful  exultation  at  such  a  moment  as  this, 
I  know  not  when  he  may  indulge  it.  Honors  are 
sometimes  given  where  they  are  not  due;  but,  in  those 
cases,  although  they  are  accepted  they  are  not  en- 
joyed. In  the  present  instance  they  flow  as  naturally 
and  as  rightly  to  the  object  of  our  esteem  as  rivers 
flow  to  the  sea.  Edwin  Booth  adopted  the  profession 
of  the  stage  when  he  was  in  his  sixteenth  year  and  he 
has  been  an  actor  close  on  forty  years.  Looking  back 
upon  that  long  career  of  ambitious  and  noble  labor  and 
achievement  I  think  he  must  be  conscious — I  know 
that  we  who  have  observed  and  studied  it  are  con- 
scious—  that  he  has  been  animated  in  every  minute 
of  it  by  the  passionate  desire,  not  to  magnify  and 
glorify  himself,  but  through  the  ministration  of  a  great 
and   beautiful  art  to  stimulate  the  advancement  of 


54  ^^t  %ttOt, 

others,  to  increase  the  stock  of  harmless  pleasure,  to 
make  the  world  happier  and  nobler,  and  to  leave  the 
stage  a  better  institution  than  it  was  when  he  found 
it.  Speaking  with  reference  to  actors  in  general,  it 
might  perhaps  justly  be  said  that  it  is  the  infirmity  of 
each  one  of  them  to  consider  himself  as  the  center  of 
a  solar  system  around  which  everything  else  in  the 
creation  revolves.  Not  so  with  the  guest  of  this  occa- 
sion, the  hero  of  this  festal  hour  —  the  favorite  of  our 
fancy  and  the  comrade  of  our  love!  For  he  "has 
borne  his  faculties  so  meek,  has  been  so  clear  in  his 
great  office,"  that  whether  on  the  golden  summits  of 
prosperity  or  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  loss  and 
sorrow  his  gentle  humility  of  disposition,  his  simple 
fidelity  to  duty,  his  solid  sincerity  of  self-sacrificing 
character  and  his  absolutely  guileless  and  blameless 
conduct  of  life  have  been  equally  conspicuous  with  his 
supreme  dramatic  genius,  his  artistic  zeal,  and  his  glit- 
tering renown.  Edwin  Booth's  fame  is  assured,  and  I 
think  it  stands  now  at  its  height ;  and  no  artistic  fame 
of  our  generation  can  be  accounted  brighter;  but  the 
crowning  glory  of  it  is  the  plain  fact  that  an  occasion 
like  this — representative  to  him  of  the  universal  sen- 
timent and  acclamation  of  his  time — is  simply  the 
spontaneous  acknowledgment  that  grateful  sincerity 
awards  to  genuine  worth.  My  words  about  him,  on 
another  festival  occasion  in  this  place,  may  fitly  be 
repeated  now : 

Though  skies  might  gloom  and  tempests  rave, 
Though  friends  and  hopes  might  fall. 

His  constant  spirit,  simply  brave, 
Would  meet  and  suffer  all  — 


€Jc  €ragebian»  55 


Would  calmly  smile  at  fortune's  frown, 

Supreme  o'er  gain  or  loss  : 
And  he  the  worthiest  wears  the  crown 

That  gently  bore  the  cross  ! 

It  was  not  to  tell  Edwin  Booth  that  he  is  a  great 
actor,  and  it  was  not  to  tell  him  that  he  is  dear  to  the 
hearts  of  his  friends,  that  this  assemblage  has  been 
convened.  The  burning  of  incense  is  a  delightful  and 
often  a  righteous  occupation,  and  of  all  the  duties  that 
your  Shakspere  has  taught  there  is  no  one  that  he 
urges  with  more  strenuous  ardor  than  that  of  whole- 
hearted admiration  for  everything  that  is  noble  and 
lovely  in  human  nature  and  conduct.  Him,  at  least, 
you  never  find  niggard  and  reticent  in  his  praise. 
But,  as  I  apprehend  it,  the  motive  of  this  occasion 
was  the  desire  to  express,  for  our  own  sake,  our  sense 
of  obligation  to  Edwin  Booth  for  the  lesson  of  his  life. 
As  the  years  drift  away,  as  the  shadows  begin  to  slope 
to  the  eastward,  as  the  first  faint  mists  mingle  with 
the  light  of  the  sinking  sun,  nothing  impresses  me  so 
much  as  the  imperative  need  that  we  should  preserve 
the  illusions  of  a  youthful  spirit  and  look  upon  this 
world,  not  in  the  cold  and  barren  light  of  fact,  but 
through  the  golden  haze  of  the  imagination  and  the 
genial  feelings.  To  some  men  and  women  it  is  granted 
that  they  can  diffuse  this  radiant  glamour  of  ideal 
charm.  Like  a  delicate  perfume  that  suddenly  comes 
upon  you  from  a  withered  rose,  or  a  bit  of  ribbon,  or  a 
tress  of  hair,  long  hallowed  and  long  preserved ;  like 
a  faint,  far-off  strain  of  music  that  floats  on  a  summer 
breeze  across  the  moonlit  sea;  they  touch  the  spirit 
with  a  sense  of  the  beauty  and  glory,  the  mystery  and 


56  Zf\c  ?[fror. 

the  pathos  of  our  existence,  and  we  are  lifted  up  and 
hallowed  and  strengthened,  and  all  that  is  bitter  in  our 
experience  and  sordid  in  our  surroundings  is  soothed 
and  sweetened  and  glorified.  They  teach  us  hope  and 
beHcf,  instead  of  doubt  and  despondency  ;  and  thus, 
in  a  world  of  trouble  and  sorrow,  giving  to  us  the 
human  patience  and  the  spiritual  nobility  which,  more 
than  anything  else,  we  need,  they 

"  Shed  a  somethin};  of  celestial  liKht 
Round  the  familiar  face  of  every  day." 

It  is  because  Edwin  Booth  has  been  in  this  way  a 
blessing  to  his  generation  that  we  are  met  to  thank 
him ;  and,  furthermore,  it  is  because  in  a  period  that 
greatly  recjuires  nobility  of  practical  example  he  is  a 
vital  and  influential  and  conclusive  proof  that  an  actor 
may  know  and  may  fulfil  his  duty  to  his  time.  What, 
that  duty  is  you  will  not  expect  any  speaker  here  to 
describe.  I  will  but  ask  you  to  recall  what  the  Ameri- 
can stage  was  when  he  came  upon  it  thirty  years  ago, 
and  to  consider  what  it  is  now,  and  to  whose  influence 
mainly  its  advancement  is  due.  And  I  will  but  add 
that  when  you  stand  beneath  the  stupendous  majesty 
of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  and  look  upon  the  marble 
which  commemorates  its  great  architect  you  may  read 
one  sentence  that  is  the  perfect  flower  of  simplicity 
and  eloquence — "  If  you  would  behold  his  monument, 
look  around  you  !  " 


speech  delivered  at  the  annual  dinner  of  the 

goethe  society,  at  the  hotel  brunswick, 

new- york,  december  9,  1 889. 

Mr.  President,  and  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

THE  time  through  which  we  are  passing  is  a  Pagan 
time  —  fruitful  of  material  results,  almost  sterile 
in  spiritual  advancement.  It  may  perhaps  end  in  a 
glorious  fruition  :  let  us  hope  that  it  will,  and  let  us 
labor  that  it  may ;  but  in  the  mean  while  its  fret  and 
fever,  its  wild  and  whirling  tumult  of  chaotic  force,  and 
its  strident  vulgarity  make  it  hard  to  bear.  In  this 
period  and  in  this  capital,  accordingly,  the  prosperous 
existence  of  such  an  association  as  the  Goethe  Society 
is  an  auspicious  and  cheering  sign.  It  means  that  the 
service  of  the  intellect  and  the  soul  is  not  forgotten 
and  has  not  been  abandoned.  The  Goethe  Society 
was  not  organized  for  that  great  educational  purpose 
of  the  American  College,  that  favorite  theme  of  the 
fostering  American  Press  —  the  knocking  and  kicking 
of  a  ball.  Your  association  bears  the  name  of  one 
of  the  greatest  intellectual  men  that  ever  lived  — 
the  grandest  type  in  literature  of  the  man  who  is 
self-made  because,  by  the  process  of  education,  he 
has  removed  all  excess  and  repaired  all  deficiency  in 
8  57 


58  ri)c  ^Cctor, 

himself,  till  the  structure  of  his  being  has  become 
symmetrical  and  ])erfect.  Goethe  was  a  man  who  did 
not  believe  that  there  is  necessarily  wisdom  in  the 
multitude ;  he  had  no  faith  in  government  by  the 
many ;  he  did  not  think  that  human  progress  consists 
in  crowning  the  apex  of  the  social  pyramid  with  the 
basis  of  the  mob.  He  was  the  apostle  of  the  intellect 
and  the  soul,  and  your  society,  following  in  his  path- 
way, is  consecrated  to  the  service  of  the  ideal,  of  which 
his  illustrious  name  is  the  ample  and  splendid  symbol. 
It  is  with  deep  and  grateful  satisfaction,  accordingly, 
and  at  the  same  time  with  humble  solicitude,  in  the 
presence  of  such  a  distinguished  company,  that  I  en- 
deavor to  respond  to  the  sentiment  in  my  honor,  so 
gracefully  announced  by  your  President  and  so  gra- 
ciously received  by  you. 

In  the  second  scene  of  Goethe's  supreme  and  im- 
perial tragedy  there  is  a  moment  when  Faust  and 
his  disciple,  standing  upon  the  mountain-side,  look 
down  upon  the  wide  and  blooming  valley  —  its  peace- 
ful cottages  nestled  in  the  bright  green  of  glistening 
foliage  and  the  whole  sweet  twilight  scene  slumbering 
in  the  rose  and  gold  of  sunset.  In  that  delicious 
moment,  so  full  at  once  of  beauty  and  of  sadness,  the 
worn  and  weary  thinker  utters  his  deep  aspiration  that 
he  might  be  permitted  forever  and  forever  to  follow 
the  sun  in  its  setting — "the  Day  before  me  and  the 
Night  behind" — and  thus  always  to  behold  the  world, 
as  now,  bathed  in  a  supernal  light  of  loveliness  and 
clothed  in  a  celestial  garment  of  peace.  The  mood  is 
a  representative  mood.     We  have  all  felt  it.     We  are 


€f)C  gOCt.  59 

all  conscious  of  something  in  ourselves  which  is  higher 
and  nobler  than  what  we  reveal.  We  are  all  conscious 
that  there  is  something  in  the  possibilities  of  human 
existence  better  and  grander  than  the  life  we  lead. 
Every  day  we  live  the  pressure  of  material  civilization 
becomes  harder  and  harder.  Every  day  we  live  the 
burden  of  care  grows  heavier ;  the  tide  of  sensuality 
rises  higher;  the  mood  of  reckless  levity  becomes  more 
heedless  and  more  bitter;  and  the  glow  and  the  ardor 
of  the  spirit  droop  and  wane. 

"  For  each  day  brings  its  petty  dust. 

Our  soon  choked  souls  to  fill, 
And  we  forget  because  we  must. 

And  not  because  we  will." 

The  wings  that  lift  the  mind,  says  Goethe,  cannot 
lift  the  body.  Yet  if  the  mind  be  lifted,  if  the  instinct 
of  spiritual  life  be  vindicated  and  cheered,  the  man  is 
strengthened  for  his  struggle  —  which  is  a  struggle  for 
the  attainment  of  a  self-centered,  pure,  and  noble  in- 
dividuality, self-reliant,  tranquil,  gentle,  patient  in  the 
present  and  fearless  of  the  future.  That  refuge  it  is 
the  poet's  mission  —  in  so  far  as  he  may  be  thought 
to  have  a  mission  —  constantly  to  declare.  I  do  not 
mean  the  writer  of  verses ;  I  mean  the  expositor  of 
human  nature  and  experience,  the  interpreter  of  human 
destiny.  That  mission  he  will  fulfil  in  many  ways. 
Sometimes  it  is  Democritus,  who  laughs.  Sometimes 
it  is  iEschylus,  who  weeps.  Sometimes  it  is  Keats, 
singing  in  the  haunted  chambers  of  imagination,  "  with 
magic  casements  opening   on   the  foam   of  perilous 


6o  €f\t  5[ttor. 


seas."  Sometimes  it  is  Byron,  with  his  grand  organ- 
note  of  passionate  agony.  Sometimes  it  is  Words- 
worth, uttering  the  solemn  voice  of  the  mountain  and 
the  cloud.  Sometimes  it  is  Goethe,  voicing  the  har- 
monies of  the  universe  and  raising  the  choral  hymn  of 
art.  Once,  and  only  once,  it  was  the  lark  that  sings 
at  the  gate  of  heaven  —  the  immortal,  the  unmatchable 
strain  of  Shakspere.  These  and  such  as  these  are  our 
comfort  in  the  thorny  pathways  of  the  world,  as  we 
walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow,  sometimes  in 
the  storm  and  sometimes  in  the  sunshine,  coming  no 
man  knows  whence  and  going  no  man  knows  whither. 
They  keep  alive  in  us  the  freshness  of  our  youth  ;  and 
many  a  jaded  toiler,  as  he  listens  to  their  music,  sees 
again  the  apple-blossoms  falling  around  him  in  the 
twilight  of  some  long-forgotten  spring,  when  the  girl 
of  his  heart  was  first  clasped  to  his  bosom  and  the 
first  kiss  of  love  was  laid  upon  his  lips. 

"  Still  o'er  the  scene  my  memory  wakes, 
And  fondly  broods  with  miser  care. 

Time  but  the  impression  deeper  makes, 
As  streams  their  channels  deeper  wear." 

Mr.  Winter  then  read  the  following  original  poem  : 

SYMBOLS. 
I. 
Not  to  give  light  alone  those  urns 
Of  golden  fire  adorn  the  skies  ! 
Not  for  her  vision  only  burns 

The  glory  of  a  woman's  eyes  ! 
But  in  those  flames  and  that  fine  glance 
The  authentic  flags  of  heaven  advance. 


^fje  ^ort.  6 1 


II. 

In  them  we  know  our  life  divine, 

For  which  the  unnumbered  planets  roll. 

Action  and  suffering  are  but  sign  ; 

Within  the  substance  dwells  the  soul ; 

And  till  we  rend  this  earthly  thrall 

We  do  not  truly  live  at  all. 


A  TRIBUTE   TO   WHITELAW   REID. 

I. 

speech  delivered  at  a  farewell  dinner  in  com- 
pliment to  the  hon.  whitelaw  reid,  u.  s. 
minister  to  france,  at  the  lotos  club, 
new-york,  april  27,  1889. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  : 

I  AM  deeply  sensible  of  the  privilege  that  you  have 
accorded  to  me  of  participating  in  this  festival  of 
honor  to  Whitelaw  Reid,  and  I  should  be  glad  if  it 
were  possible  for  me  to  respond  in  the  language  of 
eloquence  to  your  cordial  and  generous  greeting.  But 
eloquence  is  not  at  my  command;  and,  furthermore, 
since  I  have  lived  for  twenty  years  on  terms  of  affec- 
tionate friendship  with  your  distinguished  guest  — 
being  as  it  were  a  member  of  his  household,  and  per- 
haps the  oldest  member  of  his  staff  when  he  was  the 
editor  of  the  Tribune — I  feel  that  my  place,  on  this 
occasion  and  in  this  assemblage,  is  rather  with  those 
who  listen  than  with  those  who  speak. 

While,  however,  I  cannot  be  eloquent  and  certainly 
cannot  be  coldly  judicial,  I  can  at  least  be  simply  true; 
and,  whatever  may  be  the  adverse  opinion  of  critical 


€f)e  Sitrtiniali^t,  6;^ 


cynicism,  there  is  no  estimate  of  any  man's  worth  so 
sound,  so  just,  so  righteous,  so  subtly  appreciative,  and 
so  irrefragable  in  its  authority  as  that  of  the  affection 
which  his  goodness  and  his  charm  have  inspired  and 
retained.  This  hour  of  tribute  belongs,  perhaps,  ex- 
clusively to  those  observers  and  speakers  who  view  its 
object  from  the  impartial  distance;  and  certainly  it 
gladdens  my  heart  to  hear  their  words  of  praise.  Yet, 
after  all,  the  voice  of  the  fireside,  blending  gently  with 
more  formal  panegyric,  may  touch  the  strain  of  your 
homage  with  a  not  unwelcome  music.  There  are  many 
who  know,  of  Whitelaw  Reid,  that  he  is  a  man  of  bril- 
liant abilities,  long  conspicuous  in  a  career  of  splendid 
public  achievement.  They  have  seen,  in  the  undeni- 
ably great  success  of  the  J\^ew-Y(^rk  Tribune  for  the  last 
twenty  years,  the  power  of  his  character,  the  wisdom  of 
his  judgment,  the  depth  of  his  humanity,  the  wide  grasp 
of  his  intelligence,  the  royal  liberality  of  his  enterprise 
and  the  invincible  stability  of  his  patient  courage.  But 
there  are  not  many  who  can  be  so  keenly  aware  as  I  am 
(because  they  have  not  stood  so  near  to  him)  of  the 
nobility  of  his  mind,  the  sweetness  of  his  temperament, 
the  gentleness  and  generosity  of  his  conduct,  the  mag- 
nanimity of  his  thought,  and  the  purity  and  simplicity 
of  his  life.  That  is  my  knowledge  of  the  man  whom 
you  have  assembled  to  honor;  and  these  words  of 
mine  are  not  the  less  thoughtful  and  authentic  because 
spoken  by  a  devoted  personal  friend. 

There  is,  I  am  aware,  a  certain  fantastic,  Brutus-like 
ideal  of  human  conduct,  which  apparendy  assumes 
that  the  crown  and  glory  of  social  existence  is  a  gelid, 


64  Cfic  3llctor. 


bloodless  insensibility  to  all  the  gentler  feelings  of 
human  nature;  and  this  ideal  enjoins  that  you  are 
never  to  stand  by  anybody  who  happens  to  be  your 
friend,  and  that  you  are  never  to  serve  anybody  unless 
it  be  a  stranger  or  an  enemy.  To  my  mind  the  humor 
of  old  Menenius  is  far  more  rational ;  and  in  all  Shak- 
spere  I  do  not  recall  a  more  hearty  and  satisfying  as- 
piration than  the  glad  cry  of  that  bluff  old  soldier  to 
the  victorious  Marcius,  returning  triumphant  from  his 
wars : 

"A  curse  begin  at  the  very  root  of  his  heart 
That  is  not  glad  to  see  thee !  " 

Enemies,  no  doubt,  are  good  things.  I  am  always 
pleased  when  I  hear  that  certain  men  in  this  commun- 
ity have  been  maligning  my  name.  The  man  without 
an  enemy  is  the  creature  described  by  Sir  Oliver  Sur- 
face in  the  comedy,  who  "has  bowed  as  low  to  knaves 
and  fools  as  to  the  honest  dignity  of  genius  and  vir- 
tue." But  enemies  are  persons  to  be  ignored  :  whereas 
friends,  I  think,  should  always  be  remembered  and 
prospered.  It  was  with  great  satisfaction,  accordingly, 
that  I  heard  of  the  appointment  of  Whitelaw  Reid  to 
be  the  American  Minister  to  France.  Public  office 
may  derive  dignity  from  its  association  with  the  perfect 
character  of  a  gentleman,  but  the  perfect  character 
of  a  gentleman  can  derive  no  dignity  from  association 
with  public  office.  My  pride  and  pleasure  in  this 
appointment  were  not  prompted  by  the  thought  that 
Whitelaw  Reid  had  been  honored,  but  rather  by  a 
sentiment  of  exultation  that  the  government  of  my 


€f)e  gfoumalijeft  65 


country  should  be  wise  enough  and  fortunate  enough 
to  appreciate  his  value  and  to  obtain  his  service.  The 
rank  indeed,  in  this  instance,  is  the  stamp  of  national 
approbation  —  but  it  is  given  where  it  was  entirely 
deserved. 

This  world,  said  Wendell  Phillips,  is  divided  into  two 
classes — men  who  do  things  and  men  who  stand  by 
and  grumble  because  the  things  are  not  done  in  some 
other  way.  Your  new  Minister  to  France  belongs  to 
the  former  class,  and  the  whole  of  his  intellectual  life 
has  been  one  continual  battle  for  noble  principles,  high 
ideals,  and  the  public  good.  It  is  not  for  me,  at  this 
time,  to  pause  upon  specific  details  of  his  career ;  but 
there  is  one  passage  of  it  that  I  will  mention.  When 
the  great  heart  and  brain  of  Horace  Greeley,  broken 
and  despoiled  by  the  ingratitude  of  the  American  peo- 
ple, went  down  in  death,  there  came  a  dark  hour  — 
an  hour  in  which  the  old  Tribune,  a  gallant  barque 
half  shattered  by  the  tempest,  rolled  darkly  on  a  dan- 
gerous sea.  In  that  supreme  crisis  of  her  peril  it  was 
the  skill  of  Whitelaw  Reid  that  righted  her;  it  was  his 
firm  hand  that  lopped  away  her  broken  spars  and  use- 
less cordage ;  it  was  his  dauntless  and  steadfast  cour- 
age that  steered  her  —  nobly  freighted  with  the  cause 
and  the  hopes  of  the  American  people —  out  upon  that 
broad,  golden  ocean  of  human  progress  where  she  has 
ever  since  been  speeding,  with  all  her  canvas  set  and 
all  her  standards  streaming  in  the  blast.  The  man  thus 
capable  of  wrestmg  prosperity  out  of  ruin  may  well  be 
chosen  to  represent  the  American  Republic  in  the  merid- 
ian splendor  of  the  great  historic  capital  of  France; 
9 


66  €{)C  Victor. 

and  this  nation  may  well  be  proud  to  be  represented 
there  by  one  of  the  most  distinctively  American  as  well 
as  one  of  the  noblest  of  her  sons. 

The  chronic  conventional  view  of  human  life  stead- 
fastly insists  that  every  man  must  be  circumscribed 
by  his  vocation.  If  you  happen  to  be  the  editor  of  a 
newspaper  you  must  not  enter  into  the  service  of 
your  country,  because  if  you  enter  into  the  service 
of  your  country  the  independence  of  your  newspaper 
will  be  paralyzed.  That  is,  all  the  relations  of  human 
society  are  based  upon  deceit;  you  are  never  sincere  ex- 
cept when  you  complain  and  denounce ;  and  there  can 
be  no  such  thing  as  candor  except  between  strangers 
or  foes.  No  doctrine  could  be  more  petty  or  more 
pernicious.  That  man  should  be  ashamed  to  have  a 
friend  who  could  not  at  all  times  receive  the  truth  from 
his  lips,  or  could  not  at  every  proper  time  pour  the  truth 
into  his  mind.  Besides,  in  the  development  of  an  intel- 
lectual life  there  can  be  no  limitation.  In  one  of  the 
books  of  my  boyhood  there  was  a  story  that  much  fas- 
cinated my  imagination,  about  a  youth  who  attempted, 
by  cutting  rests  for  his  hands  and  feet  in  the  limestone, 
to  climb  a  little  way  up  the  precipitous  arch  of  the  great 
Natural  Bridge  in  Virginia,  but  who  ascended  so  far 
that  no  backward  step  was  possible,  and  whose  only 
and  imperative  course  was  to  cut  his  perilous  way  on- 
ward and  upward,  till  he  stood  at  last  safe  upon  the 
dizzy  summit.  So  it  is  with  the  advancement  of  an  am- 
bitious and  noble  career.  You  cannot  go  backward. 
As  the  mind  broadens  so  likewise  does  the  scope  of 
duty.    If  power  and  privilege  are  augmented,  so  like- 


€jjc  Siountaliieft.  67 


wise  is  responsibility.     And  though  the  horizon  were 
to  widen  ever  so  much, 

"  Man  still  would  see,  .  .  . 
Beyond  his  vision's  utmost  range, 
Far  regions  of  eiernal  change." 

The  ultimate  consequences  of  the  step  that  our  old 
friend  is  now  to  take  are  not  to  be  conjectured ;  but 
we,  who  know  him  so  well,  know  that  he  will  go  for- 
ward from  one  conquest  to  another — ^ because  he  was 
bom  for  victory  and  not  defeat.  Nothing  in  the  world 
is  so  precious  as  opportunity ;  nothing  in  life  so  im- 
portant as  the  right  improvement  of  it.  His  life, 
guided  and  swayed  by  this  truth,  will  be  free  from 
error  in  the  future,  even  as  it  has  been  in  the  past. 
Equally  in  joy  and  in  sorrow,  therefore,  we  bid  him 
farewell.  We  can  all  join  in  this  good-by.  We  can 
all  pray  that  Heaven  may  bless  his  footsteps,  wherever 
they  turn.  And,  finally,  we  can  all  echo  the  solemn 
and  tender  words  of  the  old  Hebrew  poet : 

God  stand  between  me  and  thee  while  we  are  absent  one  from 
another ! 


68  €l)C  %ttOt. 


II. 

speech   delivered   at  a  dinner  at  delmonico's, 
n.  y.,  may  3,  1889,  given   by  the    editorial 
staff  of  the   n,  y.  tribune,  in   compli- 
ment to  the   hon.  whitelaw   reid, 
u.  s.  minister  to  france. 

Mr.  President,  and  Comrades  and  Friends  : 
''T^HOUGH  it  be  true,  in  the  exquisite  words  of 
X  Shakspere,  that  "  silence  is  the  perfectest  herald 
of  joy,"  certainly  it  is  equally  a  truth  that  silence  is  the 
consummate  eloquence  of  sorrow.  Both  these  feelings, 
blended  here  and  now,  do  but  imperfectly  prompt  to 
speech.  This  occasion,  impressive  in  many  ways,  is 
chiefly  impressive  by  its  absolute,  perfect,  and  touching 
simplicity,  and  I  know  that  I  cannot  speak  of  such  a 
moment  as  this  in  a  manner  adequate  to  its  gentle  and 
lovely  spirit  or  to  the  deep  emotion  with  which  it  is 
regarded  by  you.  This  is  a  festival  of  separation,  and 
in  this  uncertain  world  every  separation,  however  tran- 
sient and  temporary,  becomes  pathetic  to  a  thoughtful 
mind,  because  it  prefigures  that  inevitable  and  final 
separation  when  we  are  parted  to  meet  no  more.  That 
is  why  "  greeting  ever  smiles  and  farewell  goes  out 
sighing."  The  honored  leader  under  whose  guidance 
we  have  so  long  and  so  happily  labored  in  our  pro- 
fession, some  of  us  for  many  years,  will  lead  us  no 
longer.  The  dear  and  cherished  friend  with  whom 
we  have  lived  in  so  much  harmony  and  contentment 
—  some  of  us  on  terms  of  affectionate  intimacy,  all  of 


€{je  SPoumalijBft  69 


us  in  esteem  and  kindness  —  will  cease  from  this  night 
to  be  our  companion.  We  have  asked  him  to  come 
here,  accordingly,  and  we  have  assembled  around 
him  now,  in  order  that  we  may  try  to  tell  him  how 
deeply,  for  our  own  sake,  we  regret  his  departure; 
how  constantly  and  with  what  earnest  good-will  our 
thoughts  will  follow  him  across  the  sea;  and  with 
what  a  tender  remembrance  his  name  will  be  cher- 
ished in  our  hearts.  The  word  for  such  a  moment 
is  obvious,  and  there  are  speakers,  no  doubt,  who 
could  easily  utter  it.  We  can  all  say  "  good-by." 
We  can  all  exclaim,  in  Shakspere's  music,  "  May  all 
the  number  of  the  stars  give  light  to  thy  fair  way." 
We  can  all  murmur  the  solemn  and  tender  aspiration 
of  the  old  Hebrew  Bible,  "  God  stand  between  me 
and  thee  while  we  are  absent  one  from  another." 
There  is  a  deep  and  serious  and  abiding  significance 
in  those  simple  words.  They  reach  far  and  they  cover 
much.  And  yet  I  think  that  we  —  his  professional 
associates,  his  old  friends  and  comrades,  the  soldiers 
who  have  served  under  his  banner  and  fought  by  his 
side — are  conscious  that  something  would  still  remain 
unspoken  which  ought  to  be  spoken,  if  we  were  only 
and  simply  thus  to  say  farewell.  The  moment  is  one 
for  words  of  sorrow  and  for  words  of  joy,  but  also  it  is 
one  for  words  of  honor.  There  is  a  chaplet  of  laurel 
for  Whitelaw  Reid  that  should  be  woven  for  him  now 
in  your  presence;  yet  as  I  stand  here  to-night,  in  term 
of  continuous  service  the  oldest  member  of  the  7>7- 
bune  editorial  staff  so  lately  his  —  certainly  one  of  his 
oldest  friends  —  abounding  and  rejoicing   in    gentle 


70  Cljc  3llctor. 

memories  of  an  affectionate  friendship  of  twenty  years 
—  I  may  say,  with  the  old  poet : 

"  It  should  be  mine  to  braid  it 

Around  his  honored  brow, — 
But  I  've  in  vain  essayed  it. 

And  feel  I  cannot  now." 

In  that  enthralling  scene  of  sable  splendor  which 
closes  the  sublime  experience  of  Hamlet — when  the 
last  smile  has  just  faded  from  his  beautiful  face  and 
his  weary  heart  at  length  rests  from  its  long  trouble  — 
while  yet  the  lovely  farewell  words  of  Horatio  are 
trembling  in  the  air — "Good  night,  sweet  Prince! 
and  flights  of  angels  sing  thee  to  thy  rest!  " — suddenly, 
to  the  sound  of  drums  and  trumpets,  glittering  in 
golden  armor  and  canopied  with  victorious  banners, 
stands  forth  the  resplendent  figure  of  Fortinbras, 
triumphant  and  potent  and  superb.  By  that  pathetic 
and  eloquent  pageant  the  great  poet  marks  for  us, 
with  his  imperial  touch  and  his  immortal  color,  the 
contrast  between  the  man  of  dreams  and  the  man  of 
deeds.  Myself  a  dreamer  all  my  life,  and  standing 
now  in  the  shadow  and  among  the  fallen  leaves,  I 
view  with  ever  increasing  gratitude  and  delight  the 
victory  and  prosperity  of  the  man  of  action.  Philos- 
ophy should  do  no  injustice  to  that  superb  type  of 
manhood  and  of  practical  force.  No  doubt  it  is  a 
world  of  strife  and  tumult  in  which  he  lives ;  but  it 
would  be  a  world  of  drift  and  chaos  without  him. 
You  can  muse  in  security  and  peace  over  your  Mon- 
taigne and  your  Emerson,  because  you  have  had  your 


€|)c  SouniaIij0ft»  ji 


Washington  and  your  Grant.  The  career  of  Whitelaw 
Reid  —  a  career  of  intellectual  and  of  practical  labor, 
as  a  man  of  action,  extending  over  a  period  of  more 
than  thirty  years  —  has  been  one  incessant  warfare 
for  human  rights ;  and  at  no  moment  of  it  has  he 
neglected  to  advocate  any  and  every  idea  tending 
toward  the  advancement  of  the  human  race.  As  the 
animating  and  guiding  and  controlling  spirit — the 
brain  and  the  heart — of  a  great  public  journal,  he 
has  displayed  in  marvelous  affluence  the  capacity  of 
comprehending  every  condition  of  contemporary  ex- 
perience, and  of  entering  into  every  noble  aspiration 
of  the  actual  life  of  his  time.  To  do  this,  and  to  con- 
fer upon  all  these  aspects  of  general  vitality  and  of 
individual  character  the  utterance  of  picture  and  of 
voice  —  so  that,  whether  their  result  be  failure  and 
ruin  or  victory  and  renown,  every  phase  of  humanity 
shall  be  shown  exactly  as  it  is  in  its  struggle — is  to  be 
a  great  journalist ;  and  such  a  journalist  is  Whitelaw 
Reid.  Nobody  can  wonder  that  such  a  man  should 
be  chosen  to  represent  the  American  Republic  in  one 
of  the  highest  and  most  important  diplomatic  stations 
in  Europe ;  and  nobody  can  doubt  that  he  will  repre- 
sent the  Republic  there  with  the  same  calm  wisdom, 
the  same  affluent  and  splendid  ability,  the  same  intrepid 
spirit,  and  the  same  unerring  taste  and  grace  and  re- 
finement that  have  marked  the  whole  of  his  career. 

Our  sorrow  is  that  we  lose  his  guidance  and  com- 
panionship. Our  joy  ought  to  be  that  the  seal  of  national 
approval  and  admiration  is  set  upon  our  leader  and 
comrade  —  that  the  verdict  of  our  love  and  our  judg- 


72  €f)e  sector* 


ment  (although  we  did  not  need  such  a  tribute  and 
should  esteem  and  cherish  him  just  as  much  without  it) 
has  been  ratified  by  the  sentiment  of  the  nation.  And 
our  joy  should  likewise  be  that  a  man  with  faculties  so 
ripe  and  so  superbly  trained,  and  with  a  nature  so  re- 
ceptive to  every  broadening  and  ennobling  influence 
of  high  thought,  pure  art,  and  a  beautiful  civilization, 
should  find  the  field  of  his  mental  activity  growing 
wider  and  wider,  under  the  happiest  auspices  of  ever 
fresh  experience.  No  fact  of  life  is  more  absolute  and 
decisive  than  that  of  the  gradual  but  sure  isolation  of 
the  man  of  high  intellect  from  the  primrose  paths  of 
peace  and  repose.  Sometimes,  from  his  mountain  height, 
he  may  look  down  with  longing  eyes  into  the  smiling 
valley  of  contentment  and  rest ;  but  contentment  and 
rest  are  not  for  him.  His  place  is  the  place  of  danger 
and  vigil.  He  is  the  true  "  watcher  on  the  threshold," 
the  sentinel  on  the  ramparts  of  the  new  age,  and  into  his 
hands  are  committed  the  destinies  of  his  race.  There 
is  no  other  pathway  for  our  friend  than  that  pathway 
of  circumstantial  diversity  and  intellectual  growth ;  and 
it  ought  to  make  us  proud  and  happy  to  behold  him 
thus  advanced  and  illustrious,  playing  a  great  part,  and 
worthy  and  able  to  play  it,  and  to  play  it  greatly,  upon 
a  most  brilliant  theater  of  modern  civilization. 

Once,  at  a  time  now  seemingly  far  distant,  it  was  my 
privilege  and  my  happiness,  in  the  mellow  moonbeams 
of  a  beautiful  summer  night,  to  stand  upon  the  summit 
of  the  Shakspere  Cliff,  at  Dover,  and  to  gaze  for  a  long 
while,  in  voiceless  reverie,  upon  that  gaunt,  mysterious 
coast  and  that  romantic,  shining  sea.     Overhead  the 


€|)c  Sfioumali^t*  73 


great  constellations  hung  in  the  dark  blue  heaven  and 
among  them  the  full-orbed  moon  kept  her  imperial 
state.  Far  to  the  left  frowned  the  somber  castle,  lonely 
on  its  sequestered  crag.  Beneath  nestled  the  ancient, 
historic  city,  sleeping  in  the  moonlight.  The  winds 
were  hushed.  The  waves  were  still.  A  few  ships, 
floating  in  the  Channel,  like  spirits  seen  in  dreams, 
drifted  now  and  then  out  of  the  shadow,  glimmered  a 
moment  across  the  silver  track  of  the  moon,  and  lapsed 
into  darkness.  And  far  away  to  the  southward  I  saw 
for  the  first  time  the  flash  of  the  watch-fires  on  the 
shore  of  France.  It  would  be  long— it  would  be  im- 
possible— to  tell  the  thoughts  that  made  that  hour  for- 
ever glorious  and  memorable  in  my  life ;  but  mingled 
with  them  all  was  the  inspiring  consciousness  of  look- 
ing, at  last,  upon  the  land  of  roses  and  of  song,  the  land 
of  love  and  wine,  the  land  that  was  my  country's  friend 
when  most  a  friend  was  needed.  France  has  always 
been  dear  to  the  hearts  of  Americans.  She  will  be 
dearer  than  ever  to  us  now  because  her  bosom  will  en- 
shrine the  loved  and  honored  friend  to  whom  this  night 
we  say  farewell. 


Because  in  danger's  darkest  hour. 

When  heart  and  hope  sank  low, 
She  nerved  our  frail  and  faltering  power 

To  brave  its  mightiest  foe; 
Because  our  fathers  smiled  to  see 

Her  golden  lilies  dance 
O'er  the  proud  field  that  made  us  free, 

We  plight  our  faith  to  France  ! 


74  €l)c  5l!ftor. 


Ah,  grand  and  sweet  the  holy  bond 

That  who  gives  all  is  blest ! 
And  Love  can  give  no  pledge  beyond 

The  life  she  loves  the  best ! 
That  pledge  these  hallowed  rites  declare 

Of  choice  and  not  of  chance, — 
And  he  shall  cross  the  sea  to  bear 

Our  loyal  hearts  to  France  ! 


Strong,  tender,  gentle,  patient,  wise, 

Brave  soul  and  constant  mind. 
True  wit,  that  kindles  as  it  flies 

And  leaves  no  grief  behind, — 
Be  thine  to  wear  the  snowy  plume 

And  poise  the  burnished  lance  — 
Our  rose  of  chivalry,  to  bloom 

Among  the  knights  of  France ! 


Be  thine  the  glorious  task  to  speed 

The  conquering  age  of  gold  — 
Till  ravaged  peace  no  more  can  bleed, 

And  History's  muse  behold 
Borne  in  the  vanward,  fast  and  far. 

Of  the  free  world's  advance. 
Blent  with  Columbia's  bannered  star, 

The  triple  stripes  of  France ! 


€|)e  5Fnatb. 

EULOGY  UPON  HENRY  EDWARDS* 

AN  ADDRESS    DELIVERED  AT   THE    FUNERAL  OF    HENRY 

EDWARDS,    COMEDIAN,    AT    185    EAST    Ii6tH 

STREET,    NEW-YORK,   JUNE    II,    1 89 1. 

I  heard  a  voice  from  heaven  saying  unto  me  :  Write,  Blessed 
are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord,  from  henceforth.  Yea,  saith 
the  Spirit,  that  they  may  rest  from  their  labors ;  and  their  works 
do  follow  them. 

They  shall  hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any  more,  neither 
shall  the  sun  light  on  them,  nor  any  heat. 

There  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow  nor  crying, 
neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain;  for  the  former  things  are 
passed  away. 

Behold,  the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men,  and  he  will  dwell 
with  them. 

For  the  Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  shall  feed 
them,  and  shall  lead  them  unto  living  fountains  of  water,  and 
God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes. 

''I^HE  Bible  belongs  not  to  the  Church,  but  to  the 

JL     world.    In  those  touching  words  which  are  taken 

from  it — words  which  are  inspired,  precisely  as  the 

words  of  Shakspere  are  often  inspired,  with  the  glow 

*  Henry  Edwards,  comedian,  was  born  at  Ross,  in  Wales, 
September  3,  1824,  and  died  at  No.  185  East  Ii6th  Street,  New- 
York,  on  the  night  of  June  8,  1891.     He  was  an  actor  almost  all 

75 


76  €lje  3Cctor» 

and  the  grandeur  of  imaginative  insight  —  the  old 
Hebrew  poet  has  expressed  the  conviction  of  per- 
sonal immortality  and  of  an  existence  of  happiness 
beyond  the  grave  which  is  at  once  the  consummate 
product  and  the  sustaining  impulse  of  the  human 
mind. 

If  the  voice  that  here  is  hushed  forever  could  but 
speak  in  these  obsequies,  if  the  eyes  that  here  are 
closed  in  death  could  but  look  upon  this  scene,  the 
faith  that  we  all  ought  to  cherish  would  be  made  a 
living  word;  the  hope  that  ought  to  sustain  us  would 
be  flashed  into  every  heart.  In  the  religion  of  creed 
and  dogma  —  in  what  is  called  "  revealed  religion  " — 
meaning  thereby  the  religion  which  depends  upon 
printed  documents  and  which  might  be  seriously  im- 
periled, if  not  overthrown,  by  typographical  mistakes 
—  the  friend  for  whom  we  mourn  did  not  put  his  trust. 
He  was,  nevertheless,  a  deeply  religious  man.  He 
knew  that  the  intuitions  of  the  human  soul,  the  analo- 
gies of  nature,  and  the  testimonies  of  literature  (which 
is  the  highest  expression  of  humanity)  pomt  to  one 
and  the  same  conclusion,  personal  immortality  and 

his  life.  In  New-York  he  was  associated  with  Wallack's  Theater, 
from  November  7,  1879,  to  1887.  His  last  appearance  on  the 
stage  was  made,  with  Mr.  Daly's  company,  at  the  Academy  of 
Music,  Brooklyn,  April  30,  1891,  as  Adam  in  "As  You  Like  It." 
He  particularly  excelled  in  the  line  of  old  men.  He  was  the  author 
of  a  book  of  sketches  and  addresses  entitled,  "  A  Mingled  Yarn." 
It  was  by  his  wish  and  the  request  of  his  widow  that  the  funeral 
services  over  his  remains  were  conducted  by  me.  His  body  was 
taken  to  the  crematory  at  Fresh  Pond,  Long  Island,  immediately 
after  the  funeral  and  there  incinerated. 


€J)c  f  ricnb,  77 

continuous,  unending  development.  He  knew  that 
to  be  the  logic  of  the  universe.  He  believed  that,  and 
he  lived  in  accordance  with  his  belief.  Purity,  charity, 
kindness,  and  noble  aspiration  were  the  laws  of  his 
life. 

In  a  conversation  about  actors  and  their  religious 
views  that  I  once  had  with  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bellows,  he 
spoke  especially  of  Joseph  Jefferson,  in  whose  char- 
acter and  art  he  was  deeply  interested,  and  he  asked 
me  this  question  :  "  Is  he  a  Christian  ?  "  "  He  is  not," 
I  replied,  *'  a  member  of  any  Christian  church,  but  he 
has  passed  his  life  in  helping  other  people  and  in  doing 
good."  And  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bellows  answered  :  "  That 
is  the  best  kind  of  Christian  and  good  enough  for  me." 

I  wish  that  I  could  say  anything  that  would  give 
even  a  little  comfort  to  the  heart-broken  woman  who 
here  mourns  for  her  lover,  her  husband,  her  friend,  her 
companion  of  many  years,  whom  in  this  world  she 
will  see  no  more.  We  would  all  comfort  her  if  we 
could.  But  all  that  we  can  tell  her  is  that  we  also 
loved  him  and  that  our  tears  are  mingled  with  hers. 
We  know,  and  we  would  beg  her  to  remember,  not 
only  that  he  was  tender  and  loving,  but  that  always, 
in  every  hour  of  their  wedded  life  and  love,  she  was  a 
comfort  and  blessing  to  him.  No  duty  was  left  un- 
done by  her,  no  word  of  love  unspoken,  no  kindness 
unbestowed.  She  must  weep  for  him  because  she 
loved  him,  and  because  he  is  parted  from  her.  But 
she  is  spared  the  most  desolate  of  all  sorrow  —  the 
remorseful,  hopeless,  bitter  grief  that  brings  its  wither- 
ing roses  and  its  useless  tears  to  a  gravestone. 


78  Zi^e  5Cctor. 

I  wish  that  I  could  express  the  feehngs  of  these 
mourning  friends,  their  grief  for  the  loss  of  this  good 
man,  their  deep  sense  of  his  nobility,  his  splendid 
talents,  his  worthy  achievements  in  art  and  literature 
and  science,  his  potent  excellence  as  an  example,  his 
charm  as  a  comrade,  his  simple  dignity  and  his  fidelity 
and  sweetness.  But  no  words  are  adequate  in  such 
moments  as  this  to  the  craving  of  love  and  honor  for 
eulogy  of  the  dead.  Let  me  simply  say  that  the 
reasons  we  have  for  pride  in  the  remembrance  of 
Henry  Edwards  are  reasons  for  our  consolation  in  the 
loss  of  him.  He  was  not  cut  off  in  the  morning  of  his 
days,  with  all  the  happiness  and  renown  of  a  good  and 
great  life  unrealized  and  unachieved.  He  had  lived 
almost  to  the  usual  limit  of  human  existence.  Born 
near  the  birthplace  of  David  Garrick,  he  early  evinced 
a  deep  sympathy  with  the  dramatic  art,  of  which  Gar- 
rick still  remains  the  most  illustrious  representative. 
While  yet  a  youth  he  drifted  to  Australia  and  there 
formally  adopted  the  profession  of  the  stage.  From 
Australia  he  drifted  to  California,  constantly  prospering 
as  actor,  orator,  and  scientist,  prospering  ever  more  and 
more  in  his  conquest  of  the  esteem  and  affection  of 
gentle  people.  From  California  he  came  to  this  Atlan- 
tic seaboard,  and  here  he  took  and  steadily  held,  in  the 
highest  of  our  theaters,  his  professional  rank  with  the 
foremost  and  the  best.  Not  a  creative  actor,  but 
rather  the  product  of  scholarship  and  tradition,  he 
represented  not  the  original  genius  of  the  stage,  but  its 
versatile  proficiency  and  fine  conservatism.  He  did  not 
astonish  and  dazzle ;  he  satisfied.    His  attributes  were 


€l)c  fticnb.  79 

intellectual  character,  taste,  humor,  and  tenderness,  and 
the  blended  charm  of  these  was  enhanced  by  a  dignified 
personality  and  by  that  fine  distinction  of  manner  which 
is  the  flower  of  innate  simplicity  and  courtesy.  His 
career  of  more  than  sixty  years  marks  the  ample 
development  of  his  character  and  the  beneficent,  beau- 
tiful, and  admirable  fulfilment  of  his  destiny.  All  that 
it  was  in  him  to  accomplish  had  been  accomplished. 
His  work  in  this  world  was  done,  and  his  long  life — 
blessed  with  love,  rewarded  with  success,  and  crowned 
with  honor — was  without  one  blemish.  What  richer 
legacy  than  that  could  talent  and  virtue  leave  to  be- 
reaved affection  and  faithful  memory ! 

Equally  in  life  and  in  art  success  is  dependent  on 
sincerity  and  sympathy.  Henry  Edwards  was  genuine 
and  human.  I  do  not  suppose  that  any  one  to  whom 
he  was  known  ever  thought  of  him  without  a  sudden 
feeling  of  kindness  and  pleasure.  The  mention  of  his 
name  always  brought  a  smile.  Twenty-two  days  ago 
I  clasped  his  hand  for  the  last  time.  He  was  at  once 
to  go  away  and  we  were  to  meet  no  more.  I  remember 
—  and  I  rejoice  to  remember — that  he  produced  upon 
my  mind  then  the  self-same  impression  that  he  had 
produced  at  every  meeting  between  us  during  the  many 
years  of  our  friendship  —  the  impression  of  absolute 
goodness,  benevolence,  simplicity,  and  truth.  He  was 
a  man  whom  it  was  natural  to  love,  for  every  impulse 
of  his  heart  was  an  impulse  of  kindly  interest  in  the 
welfare  and  happiness  of  others.  And  now  that  the 
smile  is  frozen  on  his  face,  now  that  the  cheery  voice 
can  speak  no  more,  now  that  the  kind  hand  will  never 


8o  €f)C  %ttOt. 


be  stretched  forth  again  in  greeting,  our  way  grows 
lonely  and  cold. 

"  His  memory  long  will  live  alone, 
In  all  our  hearts,  as  mournful  light 

That  broods  above  the  fallen  sun 

And  dwells  in  heaven  half  the  night." 

In  the  awful  presence  of  death  all  vanity  is  rebuked, 
all  pride  becomes  humility,  all  the  greatness  of  the  world 
is  a  mist  that  drifts  away.  Let  us  endeavor,  while 
there  is  yet  time,  to  learn  the  lesson  of  our  bereave- 
ments, to  look  at  death  as  a  great  and  solemn  fact. 
It  draws  nearer  and  nearer  to  each  one  of  us  every  hour 
we  live.  "  Man  goeth  to  his  long  home,  and  the 
mourners  go  about  the  streets." 

There  is  no  more  but  this.  "  Earth  to  earth.  Ashes 
to  ashes.     Dust  to  dust." 

"  Sleep  sweetly,  tender  heart,  in  peace  ! 

Sleep,  holy  spirit,  blessed  soul, 
While  the  stars  burn,  the  moons  increase, 

And  the  great  ages  onward  roll." 


PUBLICATIONS  OF  THE  DUNLAP  SOCIETY 


1886— 1887. 

I.  The  Contrast.     A  comedy  by  Royall  Tyler, 
with  an  introduction  by  Thomas  J.  McKee. 
II.  The  Father,  or  American  Shandyism.     A 
comedy  by  William  Dunlap,  with  an  introduc- 
tion by  Thomas  J.  McKee. 

III.  Opening  Addresses.      Edited  by   Laurence 

Hutton. 

1888. 

IV.  Andr6.     a   tragedy  in  five  acts,  by  William 

Dunlap,  with  an  introduction  by  Brander 
Matthews. 
V.  Thomas  Abthorpe  Cooper.  A  memoir  of 
his  professional  Hfe,  by  Joseph  Norton  Ireland. 
VI.  Biennial  reports  of  the  treasurer  and  secretary 
of  the  Dunlap  Society. 


1889. 

VII.  Brief  Chronicles,  by  William  Winter,  Part  I. 

VIII.  Brief  Chronicles, by  William  Winter.  Part  II. 

IX.  Charlotte  Cushman,    A  lecture  by  Lawrence 

Barrett,  with  an  appendix  containing  a  letter 

from  Joseph  N.  Ireland. 

1890. 

X.  Brief  Chronicles,  by  William  Winter,  Partlll. 

XL  John  Gilbert.     A  sketch  of  his  life,  together 

with  extracts  from  his  letters  and  souvenirs  of 

his  career,  by  William  Winter. 

XII.  Occasional  Addresses,    Edited  by  Laurence 

Hutton  and  William  Carey. 

1891. 

XIIL  The  Actor  and  Other  Speeches  :  Chiefly  on 
Theatrical  Subjects  and  Occasions,  by  William 
Winter. 


?•? 


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